5-(9W«^ 


i//7 


1     I 

;■  i 


MEMOIR 


OP 


HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON    WHITE. 


-/-. 


MEMOIR 


OF 


HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 


PREPAKED    AGREEABLY    TO    A    RESOLUTION 


MASSACHUSETTS   HISTORICAL   SOCH^TY 


BY   KEV.  JAMES   WALKER,   D.D. 


BOSTON: 

PRINTED    HY   JOHN   WILSON    AND   RON, 

5,  Water  Street. 

18G:3. 


«•            1    c  c  •■ 

t  ' 

tic 

t          c       c  c 

'III 

111 

I     I  I  I    C   I    I 

'l '    I     I 

LO 


]M  E  M  O  I  R 


OF 


HOX.    DANIEL    APPLETOX    WHITE. 


*  William  White  carae  to  this  country  from  Norfolk  County, 
Eng.,  in  1635;  establishing  himself  first  at  Ipswich,  after- 
wards at  Newbury,  and  finally  at  Haverhill.     He  was  present 


X 


X 


k      at  the  purchase  of  the  land  of  the  last-mentioned  town  from 

the  Indians :  and  his  name  appears  as  one  of  the  grantees 

on  the  deed  of  sale,  bearing  date  Nov.  15,  1642.     From  him 

\l'    has  descended  a  numerous  posterity,  connected  by  marriage 

\J    with  some  of  the  leading  families  in  New  England,  and  many 

of  them  noted  in  their  day  for  character  and  influence. 

Daniel  Appleton  White,  a  sketch  of  whose  life  we  are  about 

to  write,  was  of  this  lineage,  in  the  sixth  generation.     His 

^  parents,  John  and  Elizabeth   (Haynes)  White,  originally  of 

'    Haverhill,  had  removed  to  Methucn  about  four  years  before 

%  his    Ijirth,    which   took   place   June    7,    1776.     Ho    Avas    the 

^   eleventh  in  a  family  of  seventeen  children,  six  of  whom  were 

by  a  former    mother,  and   thirteen   of  whom   lived   to   havo 

fairiilies  of  their  own. 

The  father  was  a  farmer  in  easy  circumstances,  well  con- 
nected and  hospitable,  —  a  good  representative  of  the  New- 
J>J']ngland   country  gentleman   of  that  time.     His  house   stood 
iS   upon  a  broad   plain,  nearly   e([uidistant  fVinti   the  iMcrrimack 
on  the  south,  and  tlio  S[)ick('t  on  the  iiorlli.      ilis  linin,  rcacli- 


.'J.lHf>H2 


4  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE. 

ing  from  river  to  river,  consisted  of  nearly  three  hundred 
acres  ;  presenting  a  great  variety  of  rural  scenery,  and  afford- 
ing more  than  usual  opportunity  for  rural  sports.  All  is 
now  changed ;  for  this  part  of  Methuen  has  become  the  centre 
of  the  new  manufacturing  city  of  Lawrence.  But  we  speak 
of  things  as  they  were,  when  the  subject  of  this  Memoir  was 
growing  up  into  life.  In  a  manuscript  account  of  his  early 
days,*  prepared  by  himself  some  years  before  his  death,  for 
the  use  of  his  children,  he  says  of  this  period, — 

"  Perhaps  there  wei-e  never  more  circumstances  combined  to  make 
a  happy  boyhood  from  external  nature  than  I  enjoyed;  and  the 
freedom  allowed  me  by  my  parents,  especially  on  Sundays,  before  and 
after  public  worship,  to  ramble  over  the  fields,  added  to  the  pleasures 
they  were  calculated  to  afford.  My  grandfather  Haynes  had  written 
against  the  common  strict  notion  of  the  sabbath,  contending  that  it  was 
a  sort  of  Jewish  superstition  to  observe  the  day  with  such  strictness.f 


*  This  narrative,  from  whicli  we  sliall  borrow  largely,  was  written  during  the 
winter  of  1836-7.  It  fills  two  hundred  and  fifty  pages,  terminating  with  his  college 
life  in  1797.  Much  of  it  is  little  more  than  an  expansion  of  a  journal  which  he  seems 
to  have  kept,  with  more  or  less  regularity,  from  his  schoolboy-days. 

t  The  title  of  this  pamphlet  reads  thus:  "  Some  Farraginous  Remarks  upon  an  Act 
for  the  Due  Observation  of  the  Lord's  Day.  By  a  Lover  of  the  Truth.  Printed  by  E. 
Russell,  at  Concord,  for  J.  Haynes  of  Haverhill.  1793."  To  indicate  its  spirit,  we  give 
a  single  passage:  "Not  many  of  the  people  know  but  they  are  keeping  the  Jewish 
sabbath  still;  nor  do  they  desire  to  know:  and  it  seems  that  the  clergy  does  not  desire 
that  they  should  know.  And  it  seems  as  though  some  of  the  clergy  don't  know  it  them- 
selves, and  may  think  that  ignorance  is  the  best  mother  of  devotion,  and  brings  to  them 
the  most  gain:  and  the  people  seem  to  be  afraid  that  they  shall  know  more  than  their 
teachers;  and,  when  any  one  attempts  to  inform  them,  they  are  offended.  So,  it  seems, 
these  remarks  can't  be  popular."  —  p.  18.  The  following  is  from  a  manuscript  note  by 
Judge  White :  "  Upon  the  passage  of  the  act  of  the  General  Court  respecting  the 
sabbath,  in  1792,  my  grandfather,  then  almost  eighty  years  old,  was  greatly  excited, 
and  set  about  writing  these  strictures,  which  sufficiently  show  his  views  on  the  subject. 
I  was  then  just  entering  college;  and  well  remember,  that,  upon  my  frequent  visits  to 
him,  the  burden  of  his  conversation  was  about  the  '  pharisaical  General  Court,'  as 
proved  by  their  notions  of  the  sabbath,  — a  Jewish  sabbath,  as  he  maintained."  He 
speaks  of  him,  in  the  same  note,  as  "  a  venerable  and  excellent  relative ;  a  man  of  great 
integrity  and  benevolence." 

This  Joseph  Haynes  was  a  malleus  hereticorum  in  his  way.  Nearly  forty  years 
before,  he  liad  written  against  his  own  minister,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Bacheller,  and  his 
clerical  abetters,  a  bulky  pamphlet,  entitled  "A  Discourse  in  order  to  confute  the 
Heresy  delivered,  and  much  contended  for,  in  the  West  Parish  in  Haverhill,  and 
countenanced  by  many  of  the  Ministers  of  the  Neighboring  Parishes;  viz.,  that  the 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  5 

My  father  and  mother  partook  of  his  sentiments,  and  held  us  to  nothing 
more  on  the  sabbath  than  reading  the  Bible  and  gomg  to  meeting, 
with  ample  indulgence  between  whiles  to  walk  over  the  farm,  pick 
berries,  look  after  birds'  nests,  and  the  like ;  but  amusements,  such  as 
fisliing,  &c.,  and  work  of  all  kinds,  were  not  allowed.  Tliis  early- 
indulgence  on  the  sabbath  is  probably  the  reason  of  the  delight  which 
has  ever  been  associated  in  my  mind  with  this  sacred  day,  —  a  day 
which  has  always  been  the  most  interesting  to  me  of  the  whole 
week." 

That  his  Sunday  duty,  so  far  as  it  consisted  in  reading  the 
Bible,  was  never  neglected,  appears  from  the  same  autho- 
rity :  — 

"  I  remember  I  had  read  the  whole  Bible  through  in  course  before 
I  was  eight,  and  three  times  before  I  was  fourteen,  besides  different 
portions  of  it  numberless  times  more.  I  have  still  a  lively  remem- 
brance of  the  fascination  and  tears  with  which  I  perused,  over  and  over, 
the  affecting  story  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren,  and  the  narrative  of  our 
Lord's  trial,  crucifixion,  and  resurrection,  as  Avell  as  some  other  parts 
of  the  sacred  histories  in  the  Old  and  Ncav  Testament.  This  famili- 
arity with  the  Scriptures,  especially  the  Gospels,  in  my  early  days, 
however  crude  some  of  my  notions  were,  I  have  ever  considered  as 
having  a  most  propitious  influence  upon  my  wliole  life.  It  is  remark- 
able how  little  my  impressions,  as  then  received,  of  Jesus  and  his 
disciples,  have  been  changed  by  subsequent  reading  and  reHei-tion. 
Their  images  as  then  stamped  upon  my  mind,  and  the  most  interesting 
associations  then  formed,  still  remain  without  material  alteration." 

Other  causes  were,  however,  at  work  to  make  religion  a 
source  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  liis  youthful  troubles.  His 
father  and  motlicr  were  strict  Baptists,  and  also  ''  New 
Ligiits,"    as  the   followers  of  Wliitefield   were   then    called. 


Blood  and  Water  wliich  came  from  Christ  when  tlie  Soldier  pierced  his  Side,  liis  Liu-inj; 
in  his  Grave,  and  his  Resurrection,  was  no  part  of  Redemption,  and  tliat  his  Laying  in 
the  Grave  was  no  part  of  his  Humiliation."  An  answer  bj'  one  of  the  ministers  led 
to  a  rejoinder  by  Ifaynes,  —  another  pamphlet  of  eighty-two  ]>agos.  What  a  iincstion  to 
break  up  the  peace  of  a  country  congregation !  what  a  satire  on  much  which  i>assc3 
for  theological  controversy ! 

Mr.  Ilaynes,  in  his  last  days,  was  a  liajilist.  Though  without  any  grannnatical 
learning,  as  his  writings  show,  he  was  evidently  a  shrewd,  sincere,  and  fearless  man, 
and  quite  a  reader  and  thinker. 


G  MEMOIR    OF    HON.   DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE. 

The  boy's  reverence  for  his  parents,  to  which  indeed  they 
would  seem  to  have  been  eminently  entitled  by  their  general 
excellence  of  character,  together  with  the  conversation  and 
preaching  he  listened  to  and  most  of  the  books  he  read,  all 
conspired  to  convince  him  that  this  was  the  only  true  religion, 
and  that  the  whole  must  begin  in  a  sudden  and  miraculous 
"  change  of  heart."  Hence  his  passionate  longing  for  this 
change,  mingled,  as  was  natural,  with  many  childish  fancies 
and  terrors. 

"  My  distress  at  times  was  gi-eat,  and  not  less  for  being  kept  within 
my  own  knowledge.  Often  would  I  wander  in  the  fields  alone,  and 
in  some  secret  place  throw  myself  on  my  knees,  and  pour  out  my  soul  in 
prayer  to  God  for  a  new  heart,  —  for  the  change,  the  conversion,  whi(;h 
his  sovereign  grace  alone  could  effect.  But  my  state  of  feeling 
remained  the  same ;  my  imagination  kept  cool :  I  could  perceive  no 
sign  that  my  prayers  were  heard.  How  long  these  trials  continued,  I 
cannot  say ;  but  I  believe,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  for  several  years. 
I  at  length  became  calm  and  easy ;  without,  however,  any  change  in  my 
opinions  as  to  the  necessity  of  conversion  and  regeneration  in  the  New- 
Light  sense." 

Afterwards,  referring  to  the  same  subject,  he  observes, — 

"  The  religious  sentiments  imbibed  under  the  influence  of  the  '  New 
Lights '  followed  me  to  college,  as  I  well  remember  taking  Whitefield's 
'  Journal '  with  me  the  first  term ;  but  they  did  not  long  abide  with  me. 
I  hardly  know  what  might  not  have  been  the  fate  of  my  Clxristian  faith, 
had  I  not  found  a  satisfactory  substitute  for  them.  Priestley's  works 
Avere  open  to  me  there ;  and  such  was  my  veneration  for  him  as  a 
philosopher,  and  such  was  the  strength  as  well  as  simplicity  of  liis  faith, 
and  such  were  the  clearness  and  force  with  which  he  illustrated  it, 
while  he  most  ably  vindicated  the  truth  of  Christianity  itself,  that, 
without  embracing  all  his  views,  I  was  led  to  believe  them  substantially 
correct,  and  happy  to  find  in  them  a  refuge  for  my  religious  faith  from 
the  fanaticism  which  had  threatened  it,  and  from  the  gloomy  doctrine 
which  had  so  long  haunted  and  distressed  me." 


o 


It  Avas  a  happy  day  for  Daniel,  when  the  family  counsels 
resulted  in  the  determination  that  he   should  go  to  college. 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON    WHITE.  7 

In  June,  1792,  he  was  sent  to  Atkinson  Academy,  then  under 
the  instruction  of  Mr.  Silas  Dinsmore,  in  order  to  pursue 
the  preparatory  studies.  What  these  were  at  that  time,  may 
be  gathered  from  the  following  entry  made  in  his  journal  not 
long  before  he  left  the  school :  — 

"  Under  his  [Mr.  Dinsmore's]  tuition  I  have  been  about  eleven 
months,  and  have  recited  to  him  tlie  Lady's  Accidence,  and  parsed 
EngUsh ;  then,  in  course,  the  Latin  Accidence  [old  Master  Cheever's], 
and  part  of  Corderius  and  Eutropius  ;  the  Avliole  of  tlie  ^Eneid,  BucoHcs, 
and  Georgics  of  Virgil ;  all  the  small  TuUy;  all  the  Greek  Testament, 
after  having  studied  the  Greek  Grammar ;  also  all  Clarke's  Introduc- 
tion to  making  Latin,  and  the  Rules  of  Scanning ;  and  now  think 
myself  qualified  to  enter  Harvard  College.  In  getting  thus  qualified, 
it  took  me,  after  I  began  to  study  Latin,  exclusive  of  vacations  and  lost 
time,  about  seven  and  a  half  months,  according  to  my  computation." 

While  at  the  academy,  he  seems  to  have  been  very  happy 
and  very  assiduous  ;  often  giving  from  fourteen  to  fifteen  hours 
a  day  to  study.  The  only  thing  he  afterwards  had  occasion 
to  regret,  in  looking  back  on  this  period,  was,  that  he  did  not 
spare  more  time  for  exercise  in  the  open  air,  —  a  neglect  from 
which  his  health  suffered  for  many  years. 

With  the  preparation  above  mentioned,  he  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  passing  his  examinations  at  the  ensuing  Commence- 
ment, 1793.  He  gives  a  minute  account  of  his  journey  to 
Cambridge  for  that  purpose,  and  of  his  first  impressions  of  the 
place.  He  arrived  there  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
found  the  Common  covered  with  tents  and  vehicles,  as  was 
then  usual  on  Commencement  Day.  The  whole  scene,  toge- 
ther with  the  throng  and  bustle,  was  sufficiently  novel  and 
exciting.  Still,  the  external  appearance  of  the  college  and  its 
appurtenances  hardly  came  up  to  his  expectations.  This  ho 
accounts  for  by  observing  that  tiiero  were  at  that  time  but 
four  public  buildings,  —  Massachusetts,  Harvard,  and  Mollis 
Halls,  and  Holdcn  Chapel ;  that  the  last,  for  some  reason,  was 
in  a  dilapidated  state,  and  not  used;  and  that  tiic  otlicrs,  as 


8  MEMOIR    OP   HON.   DANIEL    APPLETON  WHITE. 

well  as  the  college-yard,  remained  just  as  they  were  when 
occupied  as  barracks  by  the  soldiers  in  the  Revolutionary 
War.  We  may  add,  that  his  anticipated  connection  with  the 
university  made  him  more  alive  to  what  he  heard  than  to 
wliat  he  saw.     Accordingly  he  says,— 

"  I  have  more  distinct  impressions  of  the  parts,  the  perfoi-mers,  and 
the  sentiments  uttered  on  this  Commencement,  than  of  those  of  any 
subsequent  one,  not  excepting  my  own.  I  have  now  a  clear  view  of 
Judge  Jackson,  as  he  then  appeared  dehvering  his  concluding  oration 
on  'Liberality  of  Sentiment,'  and  of  Dr.  Pierce  delivering  his  on 
'Astronomy.'  In  the  afternoon,  too,  we  had  Josiah  Quincy,  with  his 
IMaster's  Oration,  on  '  The  Ideal  Superiority  of  the  Present  Age.'  I 
still  see  hun,  with  his  craped  cushion  rising  above  his  forehead,  stepping 
about  the  stage  with  the  air  and  confidence  of  one  who  felt,  as  he  really 
mic-ht,  that  he  had  something  to  deliver  worth  hearing,  and  that  he 
meant  the  manner  should  be  worthy  of  the  matter." 

The  manuscript  memoir,  from  which  I  have  already  bor- 
rowed so  freely,  is  very  full  and  circumstantial  in  its  details  of 
college-life,  such  as  it  was  near  the  close  of  the  last  century. 
It  is  a  satisfaction  to  know,  on  the  evidence  of  so  trustworthy 
a  document,  much  of  which  is  copied  from  a  journal  kept  at 
the  time,  that  here  at  least  there  has  been  some  improvement, 
and  this,  too,  not  more  in  scholarship  than  in  order  and  good 
conduct.     The  writer  says,  — 

"  When  I  entered  college,  the  French  Revolution  had  broken  up  the 
foundations  of  religion  and  morals,  as  well  as  of  government,  and 
continued  to  rage  for  some  years  with  its  utmost  fury,  spreading  its 
disastrous  influence  throughout  the  civihzed  world,  and  pouring  in  upon 
our  country,  more  especially,  a  flood  of  mfidel  and  hcentious  principles  ; 
and  I  have  no  doubt,  that  to  these,  and  the  pernicious  books  embodying 
them,  much  of  the  disorderly  conduct,  and  most  of  the  infidel  and 
irreligious  spirit,  which  prevailed  at  that  period  among  the  students  at 
Cambridge,  may  be  imputed.  The  patrons  and  governors  of  the 
college  made  efforts  to  counteract  the  effect  of  these  fatal  principles,  by 
exhortation  and  preaching  and  prayers,  as  well  as  by  the  publication 
and  distribution  of  good  books  and  pamphlets.  Watson's  '  Apology  for 
the  Bible,'  in  answer  to  Paine's  '  Age  of  Reason,'  I  well  remember,  was 


0 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  9 

presented,  at  the  instance  and  expense  of  the  corporation,  to  everv 
student.  Yet  so  deeply  and  so  generally  had  the  French  mania  seized 
upon  the  popular  mind  in  tliis  country,  and  so  susceptihle  of  its  fiery 
influence  were  the  ardent  spirits  of  young  men,  all  alive  to  freedom  of 
thought  and  action  and  indulgence,  that  reason  and  argument  and 
persuasion  had  for  some  time  no  power  against  it." 

Other  causes  were  co-operating  at  that  time  to  corrupt  the 
public  morals.  Among  the  rest,  the  growing  prosperity  of 
the  country  had  begun  to  open  the  door  to  self-indulgence 
of  every  kind ;  and  the  way  in  which  the  governors  of  the 
college  thought  to  withstand  this  tendency  of  things  was 
neither  wise  nor  firm. 

"An  early  code  of  the  college-laws  had  taken  the  proper  ground, 
by  proyiding  that  'no  distilled  spiints,  or  any  such  mixed  diiiiks  as  flip 
or  punch,  should  be  used  by  any  residents  at  college  in  entertaining 
one  another  or  strangers.'  Had  this  provision  been  strictly  enforced 
till  made  an  established  custom,  a  vast  deal  of  mischief  and  vice  might 
have  been  avoided.  But  the  customs  of  society  i^revailed  against  it ; 
and  the  college  authorities  so  far  relaxed  the  rule,  as  to  allow  of  punch, 
'  it  being,  as  then  generally  made  [so  says  the  amended  code],  not  an 
intoxicating  drink.'  Then  there  was  the  Buttery,  kept  by  a  graduate 
in  a  room  in  Massachusetts,  with  a  salary  from  the  college-government, 
for  recording  exits  from  town,  fines,  &c.,  with  the  i)rivilege  of  keeping 
wines  and  other  liquors,  as  well  as  certain  eatables  and  various  other 
accommodations,  for  the  students.  The  design  of  this  was,  i)r()bably,  to 
prevent  the  students  from  resorting  to  the  A\i>\):i  and  taverns  in  the 
vicinity  for  siicli  articles;  but  it  was  |icr\(i-|c(l  in  practice,  and,  so  far 
from  ])reventing  them  in  the  use  of  wines  and  liipiors,  rather  encouraged 
them  in  excessive  indulgence,  by  l)ringiiig  the  means  wllliin  the 
immediate  reach  of  every  one  witliin  the  college." 

As  a  natural  consequence,  the  record  before  us  abounds  in 
notices  of  college  disturbances,  and  of  the  measures  taken  by 
the  officers  to  repress  them.  Tlio  disturbances,  it  would 
seem,  were  much  more  frequent  than  is  now  usual  in  tlie 
New-England  colleges ;  and  also  more  serious,  as  they  olteii 
took  the  form,  not  of  mere  frolic;  or  niischicf,  but  of  o|)cii  and 
organized  opposition  tu  tliu  c(jllege  aiitliorities.     'IMie  change 

2 


10  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

is  doubtless  owing,  in  part,  to  the  higher  tone  of  manners 
among  the  students;  but  something  is  due  likewise  to  im- 
proved methods  of  academical  study  and  discipline,  and 
especially  to  what  may  be  called  a  better  preventive  police. 
Merely  by  the  discontinuance  of  Commons  and  Evening 
Prayers,  more  tlian  half  of  the  occasions  and  opportunities  of 
college  disorder  have  been  effectually  and  for  ever  removed. 
There  is  also  evidence  of  improvement  in  administrative  skill. 
What  college,  at  the  present  day,  would  think  to  suspend  its 
regular  work  for  days,  and  even  weeks,  while  investigations 
were  going  on?  or  call  up  offenders  for  sentence  in  the  chapel 
before  all  the  students?  Yet  these  things  appear  to  have 
been  matters  of  course  seventy  years  ago.  As  might  have 
been  expected,  the  public  arraignment  of  the  real  or  supposed 
wrong-doers  often  led  to  astounding  indecorums.  Take  a 
single  instance :  — 

"  Friday,  Dec.  6, 1793.  —  The  Government  all  assembled  at  morning 

prayers.     ,  sophomore,  was  ordered  to  stand  forth  in  the   aisle, 

and,  for  offences  stated,  rusticated.  This  put  him  into  a  violent  passion  ; 
and,  seizing  a  large  cane  which  he  had  been  ordered  to  lay  aside,  he 
swung  it  round  his  head,  and  exclaimed,  '  It  is  all  a  damned  lie !  You 
are  a  pack  of  devils,  and  I  despise  you  ! '  Immediately  thereon,  one 
of  the  officers  made  a  motion  for  his  expulsion  from  college ;  which, 
being  fiut  by  the  President,  passed  unanimously  on  the  spot." 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  dangers  of  the  times  or  the 
place,  the  subject  of  this  Memoir  was  effectually  protected 
against  them  by  his  religious  education,  by  his  love  of  learn- 
ing, by  his  virtuous  friendships,  by  the  thoughtfulness,  pru- 
dence, and  self-control  which  distinguished  him  from  youth  to 
old  age.  Of  the  literary  advantages  afforded  by  the  college, 
such  as  they  were,  he  availed  himself  to  the  utmost ;  here, 
as  at  school,  the  only  ground  of  apprehension  being,  that  he 
would  overwork  a  constitution  never  robust.  Among  his 
teachers,  he  mentions  with  special  regard  Mr.  (afterwards 
President)  Kirkland,  who  was  his  class  tutor  for  the  Fresh- 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  11 

man  year ;  Professor  Pearson,  described  as  being  "  an  admi- 
rable private  lecturer  in  his  department ; "  and  Professor 
Tappan,  whose  public  lectures  would  seem  to  have  been  the 
only  ones  listened  to  with  much  interest  by  the  students. 
His  strong  social  inclinations  led  him  also  to  make  much  of 
college-clubs,  and  to  be  concerned  in  instituting  several,  one 
of  which  still  survives,  and  under  its  old  name.  An  authentic 
account  of  its  humble  beginnings  may  be  of  use  to  the  college 
antiquary.  After  referring  to  a  Coffee  Club,  which  was  not 
transmitted,  he  goes  on  :  — 

"  Besides  this  association,  there  was  another  which  spriuig  up  in  our 
class  this  term  very  accidentally,  but  which  had  a  more  permanent 
existence,  and  proved  full  of  interest  and  enjoyment  to  its  original 
members.  I  allude  to  the  Hasty-pudding  Club.  A  few  of  my  class, 
who  were  fond  of  hasty-pudthng,  engaged  a  woman  near  the  college  to 
make  it  for  them  every  Saturday  evening.  A  number  of  others, 
including  myself,  soon  joined  them,  and  formed  ourselves  into  a  society; 
at  first,  sim])ly  taking  our  pudding  and  millv ;  passing  an  hour  or  two 
together;  and  concluding  with  a  hynm,  sung  to  the  tune  of  St.  Martins, 
as  appropriate  to  the  evening.  At  lengtli,  and  by  degi'ees,  our  exer- 
cises and  enjoyments  increased,  and  assumed  a  more  literary  and 
interesting:  character.  We  had  debates  and  discussions  ;  and  sometimes 
held  mock-courts,  and  went  through  the  forms  of  trials,  wnth  judges, 
juries,  and  advocates,  constituted  by  the  society.  These  were  often 
amusing  to  us,  and  not  entirely  witliout  lu-nefit  and  improvement.  Our 
first  celebration  was  on  Wasliingtou'.s  birth(hiy,  Feb.  22,  17l)().  I  wa.s 
honored  witli  the  appointment  of  orator  for  the  occasion." 

We  have  seen  that  his  religious  opinions  took  their  fnial 
direction,  if  not  a  perfect  and  consistent  form,  whilo  lie  was 
an  under-graduate.  The  same  maybe  also  said  of  his  j)olitical 
views.     We  give  the  statement  in  liis  own  words:  — 

"  In  the  next  chamber  to  ours,  we  had  a  pleasant  neighbor  in  IVFr. 
Sales,  the  present  [1M.'{7]  teaeher  of  Spaiii-h  and  I'' reach  in  the. 
university,  —  then  a  young  man,  recently  \'n>\\i  l-iance,  and  lull  of 
entluisiasm  for  liberty  and  e(|iialily.  I  reeolleel  his  saying  lie  would 
object  lo  being  in  heaven,  Ifihey  liad  not  a  republican  govenuiient  there. 
I  know  not  but  he  might  have  awakened   in  us,  V»y  force  of  sympathy, 


\-2  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    AI'PLETON    WHITE. 

somotliinji;  of  a  foclinji  for  tlu^  French ;  for  we  took  the  '  Independent 
Clironiolo,'  then  a  violent  newspaper  on  that  side,  for  a  few  months, 
bnt  afterwards  exehanged  it  for  the  '  Cohuiibian  Centinel.'  This  was 
my  initiation  into  politics.  I  did  not  cease  to  be  Freshman,  before  my 
eyes  were  opened  to  the  fiu-y  and  madness  of  French  liberty,  and  the 
extravagances  of  American  democracy  acting  in  sympathy  with  it. 
Tiie  wisdom  of  the  framers  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  then  in  suc- 
cessful operation  under  Washington,  and  of  the  conductors  of  his 
administration,  appeared  manifest  to  me ;  their  policy  and  measures 
being  jjursued  Avith  singular  uprightness  and  true  patriotism,  and 
calculated  to  secure  liberty  with  order,  and  to  advance  the  best  interests 
and  welfare  of  the  country,  its  true  honor  and  dignity,  and  to  inspire 
the  people  with  a  love  of  public  and  private  virtue  and  the  spirit  of 
real  patriotism.  I  was,  of  course,  a  firm  and  hearty  Federalist ;  and 
have  never  since,  for  a  single  moment,  seen  reason  to  doubt,  or  felt 
hesitation  in  declaring,  the  soundness  and  purity  of  the  principles  of 
Federalism,  the  principles  of  Washington  and  Hamilton." 

His  class  was  a  large  one  for  that  time,  including  the  Hon. 
Horace  Binney  of  Philadelphia,  Samuel  Farrar,  Esq.,  of  Ando- 
ver,  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Jenks  of  Boston,  who  still  (1863) 
survive ;  also,  among  the  dead,  Dr.  John  C.  Warren  of 
Boston,  the  Hon.  James  Richardson  of  Dedham,  Chief-Justice 
Richardson  of  New  Hampshire,  and  Professor  Asahel  Stearns 
of  the  Law  School  at  Cambridge.  Their  Commencement  took 
place  July  19,  1797,  with  the  usual  number,  and  more  than 
the  usual  variety,  of  exercises,  —  among  the  rest,  three 
poems,  a  dialogue  in  French,  and  a  Hebrew  oration.  Binney 
and  White  had  long  been  candidates  for  the  highest  honors 
of  the  day.  To  show  how  little  ground  there  is  for  the  fears 
sometimes  expressed  as  to  the  moral  effect  of  college  rivalries, 
we  cannot  refrain  from  mentioning,  that  the  latter  always 
deemed  it  "  an  unmerited  distinction  "  that  these  honors  were 
finally  awarded  to  him ;  and  that  neither  this  circumstance, 
nor  any  thing  else,  ever  disturbed  for  a  moment  the  mutual 
affection  and  regard  of  the  two  friends.  Mr.  White  delivered 
the  principal  Enghsh  oration  ;   taking  for  his  subject  "  The 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  13 

Reign  of  Prejudice,"  and  closing,  as  was  then  the   custom, 
with  a  commemoration  of  the  benefactors  of  the  universit}". 

Looking  back  in  advanced  life  on  his  whole  academic 
course,  Judge  White  bears  this  testimony  :  — 

"  The  five  years  which  I  passed,  from  my  entrance  into  Atkinson 
Academy  to  my  leaving  Harvard  College,  were  among  the  hajijjiest  of 
my  life.  I  have  ever  regarded  them,  too,  as  unquestionably  among  the 
most  important.  My  education  at  Cambridge,  together  with  the  asso- 
ciations connected  with  it  and  the  friendships  growing  out  of  it,  have 
certainly  been  the  source  of  many  of  my  richest  enjoyments,  if  not  of 
my  principal  qualifications  for  being  useful  to  others."  * 

In  choosing  a  profession,  he  was  troubled  by  difficulties 
from  without  and  from  within.  Naturally  of  a  serious  and 
devotional  turn  of  mind,  and  with  all  his  prevailing  tastes  in 
favor  of  a  literary  and  quiet  life,  it  may  seem  strange  that  he 
did  not  enter  at  once  on  the  study  of  divinity.  We  give  the 
explanation  in  his  own  words :  — 

"I  should  probably  have  selected  this  2)rofession,  for  neither  of  the 
others  had  any  attraction  in  my  \new,  had  it  not  been  for  the  peculiar 
state  of  my  own  mind  in  respect  to  religious  doctrines,  and  the  strong 


•  For  statistical  purposes  connected  with  tlie  relative  expenses  of  living  at  dif- 
ferent periods,  it  may  be  well  to  mention,  that  his  proper  college  charges  for  the  four 
years  amounted  to  four  hundred  and  eighty  dollars  ;  and  that  the  whole  cost  of  his 
education  at  Cambridge,  "  including  clothes,  books,  travelling-exi)Cnses,  pocket-money, 
&c.,"  did-  not  exceed  eight  hundred  dollars. 

Still  further  to  illustrate  economic  changes,  we  co[)y  the  following  from  the  manu- 
script autobiography,  giving  a  glimpse  of  country  life  at  that  jieriod:  "  You,  my  dear 
William  and  Henry,  who  have  little  more  to  do  than  speak  to  a  tailor  or  shoemaker 
when  you  have  occasion  for  the  products  of  cither,  cun  have  no  idea  of  what  I  had 
sometimes  to  go  through  in  sup|)lying  myself  with  such  necessary  articles.  I  had,  this 
vacation,  a  suit  of  college-gray,  made  of  homespun,  which  I  had  to  take  to  the  clothier's 
to  be  draped;  then  after  it  a  rmmber  of  times,  generally,  before  it  could  be  had;  then  to 
Haverhill  for  a  tailor,  in  vain;  then  to  Andover,  with  better  success.  So,  likewise,  I 
had  to  get  of  the  currier  leather,  ami  take  to  the  shoemaker;  who  kept  no  stock  for  his 
customers,  but  merely  aflbrded  his  work.  1  find  I  had  to  ride  no  less  than  four  times, 
and  as  many  miles  too,  to  a  currier,  for  a  pair  of  boot-legs;  which  were  then  pre- 
pared in  a  particular  manner,  so  as  to  stretch,  to  let  the  lioid  through;  and  then 
shrink,  to  set  snug  to  the  leg,  —  the  great  beauty  of  the  boot  at  that  time.  I  succecdeil, 
at  last,  in  getting  a  pair  which  I  could  put  on;  and  found  myself  in  hoots,  for  tlio  first 
time,  on  the  last  day  of  .January,  17!»4." 


14  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    PANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

opinions  and  toolings  of  my  father  and  mother  as  to  the  awful  responsi- 
bility of  entering  this  ])rofession  without  conversion  and  a  divine  call. 
To  neither  of  these  could  1  make  any  pretension ;  and  therefore  could 
not  become  a  prcMicher  without  deeply  wounding  the  hearts  of  those 
whom  I  loved  and  revered.  But,  besides  this  objection,  my  own  mmd 
was  not  then  in  a  proper  state  for  undertaking  the  duties  of  the  sacred 
office.  Calvinism,  which  I  had  mistaken  for  Christianity,  had  lost  its 
hold  on  my  mind  and  affections ;  and  though  I  clung  to  the  Christian 
faitii,  yet  I  was  too  much  perplexed  with  doubts,  and  too  unsettled 
in  mv  religious  opinions,  to  allow  myself  to  think  of  becoming  an 
expounder  of  Christianity  to  others." 

That  these  reasons  did  not  entirely  reconcile  him  to  the 
abandonment  of  the  course  he  would  otherwise  have  pursued, 
appears  from  a  letter  written  to  one  of  his  most  intimate 
friends,  even  after  he  he  had  begun  his  legal  studies.  He 
there  says,  "  For  my  own  part,  I  have  sometimes,  of  late, 
almost  regretted  that  I  could  not  have  studied  divinity.  I 
feel  convinced  it  is  a  more  peaceful  and  happy  profession 
than  that  of  the  law.'' 

Though  he  had  decided  upon  his  profession  at  the  time  of 
graduating,  it  was  several  years  before  he  began  to  prepare 
himself  for  it,  except  at  leisure  hours,  to  be  spared  from  his 
proper  business  as  an  instructor.  Two  of  those  years  were 
passed  at  Medford,  as  teacher  of  the  public  Grammar  School. 
While  there,  he  occasionally,  in  writing  to  his  friends,  be- 
moaned the  necessity  he  was  under  of  giving  so  many  of  his 
best  days  to  an  occupation  not  likely  to  advance  his  main 
object  in  life.  Still  he  was  neither  inactive  nor  unhappy. 
He  kept  up  many  of  his  college  intimacies ;  he  entered  freely 
into  society ;  above  all,  he  laid  the  foundation  of  a  lasting 
friendship  with  Dr.  Osgood,  the  distinguished  clergyman  of 
the  place,  for  whom  he  always  entertained  great  affection  and 
reverence. 

Neither  Medford  influences,  nor  the  temper  of  the  times, 
were  of  a  nature  to  moderate  his  political  partialities.     Ac- 


**  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  15 

cordingly,  his  letters  at  this  period  abound  in  allusions  to 
what  he  considered  the  outrageous  conduct  of  the  "  Jacobins," 
as  they  were  then  called.  Thus,  under  date  of  March  13, 
1799,  we  have  his  account  of  the  judicial  proceedings  against 
a  political  offender  of  that  party,  which  sounds  strangely  in 
our  ears : — 

"  Since  my  last,  I  have  attended  the  trial  of  one  of  the  '  Chronicle  ' 
printers,  indicted  at  common  law  for  a  libel  upon  our  State  Legislature, 
occasioned  by  their  decision  ujion  the  YirgiTiia  Resolutions.  His 
defence  was  managed  by  G.  Blake  and  B.  AVhitman.  —  the  latter  a 
strong  Federalist.  They  endeavored  to  show  that  the  common  law  of 
England,  as  to  libels,  is  unreasonable,  contradicting  the  maxim  that  law 
is  '  the  perfection  of  reason  ; '  and  contradictory  in  itself,  being  different 
in  different  reigns.  They  urged  the  impropriety  of  admitting  it  into 
our  courts  of  justice,  as  the  genius  of  the  country  and  the  nature  of  our 
government  and  institutions  are  so  different  from  those  of  England,  and 
all  opposed  to  it.  They  dwelt  mucli,  too,  upon  tlie  freedom  of  the 
press,  and  the  danger  of  beginning  to  restrain  it.  "Whitman  acknow- 
ledged that  the  publication  in  question  was  bad  enough,  —  so  bad, 
indeed,  that  it  '  out-Clironicled  the  Chronicle;'  yet  he  did  not  tliink 
it  would  justify  the  court  in  establishing  a  precedent  for  cramping  the 
press.  This,  you  will  remember,  is  the  fii-st  instance  of  a  prosecution 
here  for  a  libel  upon  the  Government.  The  Attorney-General.  SiiHi\  an. 
replied  in  a  very  aide  manner,  and  agreeably  disappointed  some,  who 
had  felt  suspicious  of  him  on  account  of  his  ])olitical  l»i:ises.  He 
clearly  showed  the  uniform  j)ractical  necessity  of  admitting  tlie  common 
law  of  England  in  our  country;  that  it  is  consistent  and  reasonabh' ; 
that  tliere  is  a  manifest  difH-rence  between  the  liberty  and  tlie  licen- 
tiousness of  the  press  ;  that  the  'Chronicle'  ciicd  aliMid  tl)i-  a  (lH<k, 
transcending  all  b(junds  of  decency ;  in  fine  tliat  noliiing  cduld  l>r  toiiiid 
ill  the  publications  during  our  Kcvuhitinii  ciiiial  lo  the  raluninics  tif 
that  paper.  He  wa.s  sustained  by  the  wholi;  force  of  llie  IJeiich ;  and 
the  verdict  of  tlie  jury,  thongli  containing  sevr-ral  ilnnocrals,  was. 
Grii.TV." 

In  August,  1799,  Mr.  White  returned  to  Cambridge,  with  a 
view  to  give  himself  exclusively  to  his  professional  studies. 
r»uthis  inclination  for  an  academic  life  broke  up  this  i)urposc, 
and   induced  him,  in  the  following  November,  tt^  accept  the 


16  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE. 

appointment  of  Latin  tutor  in  the  college,  —  a  place  which  he 
held  for  iiearlv  four  vears.  In  a  letter  to  a  classmate  abroad, 
dated  Nov.  12, 1800,  he  gives  us  to  understand  how  the  tutors 
of  that  day  passed  their  time  :  — 

••  We  have  a  jrood  opixn-t unity  for  attending  to  books,  with  a  rich 
poitioii  of  social  comfort;  being  together  everyday,  more  or  less,  and 
free  to  interchange  our  thoughts  and  feelings  as  they  arise.  Politics, 
you  know,  in  all  free  countries,  is  the  prevailing  topic  of  conversation. 
AVlien  all  people  are  at  liberty  to  speak  their  thoughts  upon  the  mea- 
sures of  government,  various  parties  and  opinions  will  spring  up,  and 
])roduce  animated  discussions.  We  hear  a  great  deal  of  this  at 
our  colloquial  meetings.  While  the  question  was  Jacobin  or  Fede- 
ral, most  men  of  intelligence  and  honesty  here  were  of  one  side ;  but 
since,  among  the  latter,  the  Essex  Junto,  so  called  and  imagined,  has 
made  a  new  distinction,  even  Ave  tutors  —  alias  the  'ragged  regiment,' 
as  Tutor  Barron  styled  them  —  are  not  always  agreed.  I  believe  I 
have  mentioned  before  the  mission  to  France,  the  disbanding  the  army, 
the  dismission  of  Pickering,  the  pardon  of  Fries,  &c. ;  and  that  these 
proceedings  of  President  Adams  had  created  dissatisfaction,  and  pro- 
duced a  division  among  the  Federalists.  At  the  head  of  the  new  party 
opposed  to  the  President  stands  General  Hamilton,  who  has  written 
and  pubhshed,  at  least  for  his  political  friends,  a  severe  letter  against 
Adams,  in  Avhich  every  thing  is  adduced  of  an  unfavorable  character 
which  could  be  collected  from  the  whole  of  his  public  and  private  life, 
his  writings  and  conversation,  yet  all  amounting  to  little  in  the  eye  of 
candor." 

He  also  mentions,  in  the  same  letter,  a  literary  enterprise 
on  the  part  of  the  Cambridge  scholars,  in  the  success  of  which 
he  seems  to  have  been  much  interested.  "  The  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  Society,  at  the  last  Commencement,  formed  the  plan  of 
a  *  Literary  Review  and  Miscellany,'  to  be  published  by  them 
quarterl}'.*  The  committee  in  charge  of  the  same  has  since 
connected  it  with   a  magazine   to   be   published  monthly  in 


•  Professor  Willard  must  have  been  mistaken  in  thinking  tliat  this  vote  was  passed 
in  1803.  It  seem>  that  he  liad  to  trust  to  liis  memory  alone;  for,  on  asking  permission 
to  searcli  tlie  records  of  the  society,  tliey  were  not  to  be  found.  —  See  his  "  Memories 
of  Youth  and  Manhood,"  vol.  ii.  pp.  133,  156. 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  17 

Boston ;  the  communications  of  the  society  to  be  printed  at 
the  end,  and  paged  by  themselves,  so  as  to  admit  of  being 
separately  bound.  I  hope  you  will  send  us  over  something 
for  it  while  you  are  in  England."  This  plan  was  not  carried 
into  effect ;  at  least,  not  immediately,  nor  in  the  form  here 
proposed :  but  the  "  Literary  Miscellany,"  which  first  ap- 
peared in  July,  1804,  grew  out  of  the  movement.  No 
allusion  is  made  to  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  in  the  prospectus  of 
the  "  Miscellany,"  probably  from  prudential  reasons,  as  the 
prejudice  w^as  strong  at  that  time  against  all  secret  associa- 
tions ;  but  the  members  of  the  society,  as  Professor  Willard 
tells  us,  "  were  expected  to  be  its  special  patrons."  It  was  a 
quarterly  publication,  which  struggled  on  for  two  years,  and 
then  expired,  being  supplanted  by  its  more  successful  rival, 
the  "  Monthly  Anthology."  It  had  among  its  contributors 
John  Quincy  Adams,  John  Thornton  Kirkland,  Joseph  Stevens 
Buckminster,  and  Andrews  Norton.  Mr.  White  contributed  a 
paper  entitled  ''  Remarks  on  Memoirs  of  Solomon  Gessner," 
and  probably  others. 

The  college,  in  the  time  of  Mr.  White's  connection  with 
the  Immediate  Government,  the  name  then  given  to  the 
Faculty,  was  much  more  dependent  on  the  tutors,  botli  for 
instruction  and  discipline,  than  at  present.  Teaching,  more- 
over, had  not  as  yet  become  a  distinct  profession ;  so  that  the 
tutorships  were  seldom  filled,  as  they  often  are  now,  by 
persons  ambitious  to  qualify  themselves  for  higher  distinc- 
tions in  the  same  calling.  Almost  witliout  exception,  they 
were  students  in  divinity  or  law,  seldom  holding  the  place 
more  than  a  single  year;  with  their  minds  and  hearts  intent, 
meanwhile,  on  other  pursuits  and  prospects.  Under  these 
circumstances,  Mr.  White's  longer  residence,  together  with 
his  decided  academic  tastes  and  aj)titudcs,  and  his  earnest 
support  of  a  wise  and  firm  i-uie,  made  his  influence  to  bo  felt 
in  college  afBiirs  in  an  unusual  degree,  and  on  the  right  side. 
Still,  as  may  be  gathered  fioMi   his  own  statements,  things 

3 


18  MEMOIR   OF   HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE. 

were  managed  in  a  loose  way.  Referring,  in  his  correspond- 
ence, to  the  assignment  of  parts  for  Commencement  in  1802, 
he  observes,  "  "We  have  taken  great  pains,  and  spent  ten  or 
twelve  evenings,  with  one  afternoon,  in  adjusting  and  settling 
them.  The  arrangement,  on  the  whole,  pleases  me,  though* 
in  some  instances  I  was  in  the  minority  on  the  question  for 
deciding  them."  Under  the  present  system,  the  same  work 
would  be  done  for  a  class  twice  as  large  in  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  with  as  much  substantial  justice,  to  say  the  least,  and 
with  infinitely  less  dissatisfaction  and  heart-burning. 

At  length,  though  not,  as  it  would  seem,  without  some  im- 
portunity on  the  part  of  his  friends,  he  resigned  his  tutorship. 
The  following  passage,  in  a  letter  written  when  he  was  on 
the  eve  of  leaving  Cambridge,  shows  that  Blackstone,  and 
Coke  on  Littleton,  had  not,  thus  far,  succeeded  in  banishing 
the  classics :  — 

"  I  have  not  yet  made  any  positive  engagements  for  the  next  year. 
Indeed,  I  have  been  quite  a  recluse  at  home  in  study ;  not,  however, 
in  law,  l)ut  in  Latin.  I  can  truly  say,  that  from  no  reading  have  I  ever 
derived  more  satisfaction  and  amusement  than  from  TuUy's  literary 
and  philoso])hical  works.  He  appears  to  have  been  a  man  of  as  fine 
feelings  as  talents.  His  essays  on  Old  Age  and  Friendship  are  supe- 
rior to  any  thing  I  ever  met  with  elsewhere  on  those  subjects.  I  had 
supposed  his  ideas  on  friendship  extravagant  and  romantic ;  but  I 
believe  he  has  said  nothing  which  you  could  not  accede  to  in  practice, 
as  I  do  in  theory.  His  treatise  '  De  Oratore '  is  the  groundwork  of 
every  thing  excellent  since  produced  on  the  subject ;  and  as  to  his  work, 
'  De  Officiis,'  nothing  exceeds  the  wisdom  and  purity  of  its  moral 
precepts  but  Christ's  Sermon  on  the  Mount." 

Having  decided  to  finish  his  legal  studies  with  Mr.  (after- 
wards Judge)  Putnam  in  Salem,  he  removed  to  that  place  in 
September,  1803.*     Here  he  began  his  intimacy  and  friend- 

•  From  the  time  of  his  return  to  Cambridge,  in  the  summer  of  1799,  his  name  had 
been  in  an  office  there,  — first  in  Mr.  Joseph  Bartlett's,  afterwards  in  Mr.  Francis 
Dana  Channing's.  In  making  up  the  term  of  study  tlien  required  for  admission  to  the 
Bar,  these  four  years  were  counted  for  a  little  more  than  two. 


MEMOIR    OP    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  19 

ship  with  Mr.  John  Pickering,  whom  he  found,  to  use  his  own 
hinguage,  "  most  valuable  as  a  fellow-student  in  the  same 
office,  and  altogether  delightful  as  a  social  and  literary  com- 
panion." Both  were  bent  on  keeping  up  their  scholarly 
tastes  and  habits.  This  appears  from  the  fact,  that  they  had 
been  together  but  a  few  months  before  they  accepted  a 
proposition  on  the  part  of  Gushing  and  Appleton,  publishers 
in  Salem,  to  edit  a  new  edition  of  Sallust.  It  was  the 
earliest,  or  one  of  the  earliest  attempts  of  the  kind  in  the 
country;  and  therefore,  as  a  matter  of  literary  history,  deserves 
more  than  a  passing  notice. 

The  text  was  carefully  revised,  and  collated  with  three  of 
the  best  editions  of  the  author,  and  the  most  important  of  the 
various  readings  are  given.  The  notes  are  chiefly  selected 
from  the  Delphine  Sallust;  but  these  are  often  modified  and 
abridged,  and  many  are  inserted  from  other  sources.  Un- 
wearied pains  Avere  also  taken  in  correcting  the  press;  so  that, 
in  this  respect,  it  will  bear  comparison  with  the  best  editions 
of  the  classics  published  here  or  abroad,  ^h.  White,  in  a 
letter  to  Mr.  Ticknor,  gives  the  following  account  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  editors  proceeded  with  their  work:  — 

"After  undertaking  the  task,  we  pursued  our  labors  very  fjiitlifully 
together  at  ]Mr.  Putnam's  office;  generally  devoting  to  it  seviinl  Ik.iiis 
of  every  afternoon.  It  was  to  ine  an  exceedingly  interesting  occu- 
pation, and  was  rendered  ahogcllier  deliglitful  from  liaving  sucli  a 
companion  in  the  work.  INIr.  rickering  was,  of  course,  tin-  arl)it('r  in 
all  (»ur  deliljerations  pertaining  to  tiie  text  and  other  matters  of 
criticism.  What  lie  cliiefly  expected  of  me  was  the  selection  of  notes, 
especially  those  to  be  taki-n  from  tlie  ])<-lphin<-  eilition  ;  and  I  think  also 
my  |)articular  attention  in  regard  to  the  |iuM(tuation.  In  fact,  I  was 
but  his  assistant,  and  really  wished  to  refer  everything  to  him;  though, 
from  his  habitual  mod(;sty,  he  would  s<(iii  to  refi-r  all  to  me.  In  duly, 
iHOt,  I  removed  to  Newburyport,  before  oim-  joint  undertaking  wa.s 
finished;  and  di«l  little  more  afterwards  than  to  mark  the  notes  selected 
from  the  I)«dphine  edition,  to  look  over  tlie  |,ioof--liee|s  whi<'h  Mi'. 
Pickering  sent  to  me,  and  to  advise  al)ouf   questions  which  he  w(»uld 


20  MEMOIR   OF   HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON   WHITE. 

still  insist  ui)on  submitting  to  me.  lie  wrote  the  Latin  preface,  and 
also  the  Kn-lish  notice  in  the  '  Literary  Miscellany ; '  sending  both  to 
me  for  revision,  which  neither  needed.  Of  the  former,  he  thus  speaks 
in  his  letter  to  me :  '  I  enclose  a  paper  which  I  am  almost  ashamed 
you  should  see,  —  a  draught  of  the  i)reface  to  be  prefixed  to  the  Sallust. 
I  beg  you,  as  the  responsibility  will  fall  wholly  upon  you,  to  look  it 
through  with  attention,  and  expunge  and  alter  without  mercy.'  In 
another  letter,  he  proposed  expunging  from  our  edition  the  sentence  in 
Marius's  sijeech  (near  the  close)  — '  turpissimse  parti  corporis'  —  in  the 
Jugurthine  War ;  asking  me  to  '  weigh  the  thing  with  some  attention,' 
and  send  my  answ^er.  Both  of  us,  indeed,  kept  in  view  the  benefit  of 
learners,  more  than  the  approbation  of  the  learned;  and  our  editorial 
labors,  the  entire  responsibility  of  which  Mr.  Pickering  could  not 
escape,  ought  to  be  judged  accordingly."  * 

Meanwhile,  matters  more  proper  to  his  profession  were  not 
neglected.  It  is  interesting  to  read  an  account  of  the 
impressions  made  on  a  young  law-student,  at  the  time,  by 
the  forensic  eloquence  and  skill  of  two  men  whose  fame  is 
fast  becoming  matter  of  tradition  or  history.  Writing  to  his 
classmate  Kimball,  May  5,  1804,  he  says, — 

"  I  have  passed  two  days  at  court,  and  had  the  satisfaction  of  hear- 
ing: Parsons  and  Dexter  in  the  Crowninshield  case.  Each  of  them 
delivered  a  most  learned  and  ingenious  argument.  Dexter  had  the 
weaker  side,  and  therefore  made  greater  exertions,  and  took  up  more 
time;  but,  as  the  case  turned  on  points  of  law  rather  than  facts, 
Parsons  ai)peared  more  eminently  to  advantage  as  a  lawyer.  He  is 
indeed  a  wonderful  man.  Perfectly  at  home  in  all  sorts  of  law,  as  well 
as  of  other  knowledge  and  learning,  he  appears  to  be  incapable  of 
surprise  or  embarrassment;  wdiereas  Dexter,  from  his  deficiency  in 
some  of  the  sciences,  and  pei-haps  in  some  branches  of  the  law,  is 
exposed  to  both :  but  his  astonishing  presence  of  mind,  and  his  intuitive 
perception   and  penetration,  secure  him  a  safe  and  honorable  retreat 


•  The  titlepage  of  this  edition  reads  tlius:  "  C.  Crispi  Sallustii  Belli  Catilinarii  et 
Jugurthini  Historia;.  Editio  emendatior  juxta  Editiones  optimas  diligentissime  inter 
secoUatas;  illustrata  Notis  selectis:  cum  Indicc  copioso.  Salem,  Massachusettensium: 
Excudebat  Josua  Gushing,  impensis  T.  C.  Gushing  et  J.  S.  Appleton.  MDCGCV." 
Nearly  tiie  wliole  impression  was  destroj-ed  by  fire;  and  the  publishers  lost  so  much 
otlierwise  by  that  calamity,  that  they  had  no  courage  to  undertake  a  second  edition. 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  21 

from  every  difficulty.  These  two  moii  I  believe  to  be  the  jn'oatest 
among  the  lawyers  of  New  England  ;  yet  they  are  very  different. 
Both  are  subtle,  ingenious,  and  powerful  in  argument :  but,  in  the  one, 
it  seems  to  proceed  from  native  strength,  and  quickness  of  genius ;  and 
in  the  other,  from  a  long  and  labored  culture  of  his  genius  and  logical 
powers.  On  subjects  of  equity,  and  in  addresses  to  the  feelings,  or 
discussions  of  general  policy,  Dexter  may  be  superior ;  but  nowhere 
else.  Parsons  is  the  greater  lawyer,  —  perhaps  the  greater  man.  He 
is  certainly  the  safer  model." 

Mr.  White  was  admitted  to  the  Bar,  June  26,  1804  ;  and 
soou  afterwards  took  up  his  residence  and  opened  an  office  in 
Newburyport.  Here  he  won  early  success  as  a  lawyer :  still, 
the  profession  never  so  far  engrossed  his  thoughts  as  to  make 
him  indifferent  to  other  things. 

The  public  mind  at  this  time  was  profoundly  agitated  by 
the  death  of  Alexander  Hamilton;  and  Mr.  White's  allusions 
to  the  event  itself,  and  to  the  notices  of  it,  are  not  without 
interest.  They  show,  what  indeed  might  have  been  ex- 
pected from  his  residence  in  the  county  and  from  his 
principal  associations,  that  lie  had  now  become  a  zealous 
member  of  that  section  of  the  Federal  party  known  under  the 
sobriquet  of  "  the  Essex  Junto."  Writing  to  a  young  friend, 
Aug.  16,  he  says, — 

"The  day  I  left  you  at  C'andtridge,  I  regretted  you  could  iidt 
accompany  me  to  Bostfui.  .iiid  hen-  ilir  culniiv  on  Hamilton.  It  would 
have  added  niiidi  to  iii\-  pleasure,  and  1  think  you  would  have  found 
the  perfoniianees  interesting.  The  pravei-,  l)y  Dr.  Kirkl.nid.  was  a 
snl)lime  and  most  affecting  devotional  exercis*-.  1  could  not  refrain 
from  wishiu"  that  all  the  duties  of  tlw  dav  had  devolved  on  him.  Mr. 
Otis,  however,  gave  a  clear  and  full  view  of  the  lili'  and  services  of  iIm' 
illustrious  deceased;  iind.  doing  this,  his  eulogy  could  not  IJiil  dr(|ily 
to  interest  ;ind  grality  his  hcMrers.  Ihit  it  difl  not  rise  to  tli;it  digiiitv, 
and  pathos  of  eloquence,  which  the  occasion  demanded.  Ili>  own  feel- 
ings did  not  seem  to  have  Ijeen  |)owerfully  excited  either  in  I  lie  writing 
or  d(  liverv  of  it  ;  nor  were  his  expressions  always  chosen  with  taste,  or 
;i  due  regard  to  the  moral  sublimity  of"  his  siibjecl.  In  sonic  p.iits  of 
his   discourse,   however,    he  w;i.s  (juilc    hap|iy,  as   in   his   jqioslroplie   lo 


22  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

'  tilt'  ministors  and  warriors  of  imperial  France;'  but  his  long  apostro- 
phe to  •insatiable  Deatli'  miglit  have  been  spared.  A  far  more 
masterly  delineation  of  the  character  of  Hamilton  has  appeared  in  Dr. 
Park's  '  Kei)ertory,'  —  a  delineation  bearing  the  strong  marks  of  genius 
and  sensibility.  The  more  you  read  this  fine  sketch,  the  more  you  will 
admire  it.  It  is  truly  original,  discriminating,  and  approimate.  The 
allusion  to  Hercules  and  Hector  convey  most  forcibly  and  beautifully 
to  our  feelings  the  reasons  we  have  for  perpetually  deploring  the  loss  of 
Hamilton,  It  is  not  that  he  was  the  ornament,  so  much  as  that  he  was 
the  defence,  of  the  country.  It  is  not  that  he  was  a  man  of  genius,  a 
scholar  and  civilian  of  the  highest  order,  that  we  so  deeply  lament  him ; 
but  because  he  had  been,  and  always  would  have  been,  the  fearless  and 
able  advocate  of  the  public  interests  and  rights,  —  the  heroic  champion 
of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  country,  in  every  exigency." 

In  Avriting  to  another  correspondent,  a  month  later,  he 
expresses  himself  in  still  stronger  terms.  "We  make  room 
for  a  brief  extract,  carrying  us  back  to  the  time  when 
Massachusetts  and  South  Carolina  could  think  and  feel 
together : — 

"  The  suljject  of  your  last  letter  was,  as  you  may  well  judge  from 
your  own  feelings,  extremely  interesting  to  me ;  nor  can  it  ever  cease 
to  be  so.  My  heart  is  full  of  it,  and  running  over.  Every  scrap  I  find 
relating  to  Hamilton,  I  as  eagerly  seize  as  at  the  fii^st  moment  of  the 
terribh;  tidings  of  his  death.  Not  ten  minutes  since,  I  accidentally 
took  up  a  paper  at  the  insurance-office,  which  contained  a  bold,  brilliant, 
and  animated  sketch  of  the  inimitable  man,  from  the  clear  head  and 
warm  heart  of  the  editor  of  the  Charleston  '  Coui'ier.'  It  was  full  of 
pathos.  I  felt  obliged  to  retreat,  in  my  weakness,  to  my  office.  Mr. 
Carpenter  ])ronounces  Hamilton's  death  the  greatest  loss  this  country 
has  heiT'tofore  sustained,  or  can  possibly  sustain,  in  the  death  of  any 
individual.  The  death  of  Washington,  he  thinks,  bears  no  comparison 
to  it  a.s  a  national  loss." 

The  interest  which  Mr.  White  took  in  his  friends,  and  his 
views  of  the  oiBces  of  friendship,  were  such  as  would  have 
satisfied  Cicero.  Indeed,  his  character  in  this  respect,  both 
in  its  simplicity  and  intensity,  seemed  cast  in  an  antique 
mould.     His  friendships  were  like  those  we  read  of  in  the 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  23 

classics  and  in  the  Old  Testament ;  with  this  difference  only, 
that  they  were  penetrated  and  informed  by  a  Christian  spirit. 
Of  this,  the  narrative  of  his  life,  in  the  first  winter  after  his 
settlement  at  Newburj'port,  supplies  a  striking  illustration. 
His  classmate  Kimball  —  his  chum  while  an  under-graduate, 
and  a  fellow-tutor  afterwards  —  was  very  dear  to  him.  Mr. 
Kimball  gave  but  a  single  year  to  his  tutorship,  and  there- 
fore was  three  years  in  advance  of  Mr.  White  in  his  profession; 
having  already  made  a  beginning  of  much  promise.  But  a 
cloud  had  come  over  his  prospects.  The  lady  to  whom  he 
was  about  to  be  married  had  died;  and  the  symptoms  of  a 
fatal  malady  had  begun  to  menace  his  own  life.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  read  the  correspondence  of  the  two  young  men  at 
this  time ;  literally  sharing  each  other's  hopes  and  fears,  joys 
and  griefs.  As  Mr.  Kimball's  decline  became  more  and  more 
manifest,  the  tone  of  his  friend's  letters  becomes  almost 
painfully  sympathetic.  No  mother  could  betray  more  anxiety 
or  solicitude,  no  sister  could  express  it  more  tenderly ;  and, 
when  the  inevitable  hour  drew  nigh,  every  thing  but  the 
most  pressing  duties  was  forgotten,  that  he  might  be  at  his 
side. 

Writing  from  Haverhill  in  December,  he  says, — 

'•  My  time  is  now  divitlcd  l)etween  this  place  and  !Ne\vl)iiry])ort. 
Our  friend  Kimball  is  now  on  tlie  bed,  taking  a  short  repose ;  too  feeble 
to  sit  up  all  the  day,  and  unable  to  s])eak  except  in  wiiisiicrs.  T  bavc- 
been  with  him  since  Friday  last,  and  lind  him  mudi  weaker  than  when 
I  was  here  about  a  fin-tniglit  ago.  His  cough  is  very  distressing;  and, 
if  not  relieved,  must  bring  on  a  dissolution  liehn-e  many  weeks.  As  to 
recovering,  mither  he  nur  anv  of  his  I'liemls  lia\e  the  least  Impe  oC  it. 
lie  lias  'set  his  house  in  order."  and  seems  ]irepareil  to  lea\e  ns.  lie 
appears  a  marvid  of  fortitude  and  patient  resignation,  (iod  grant  him 
peace  and  consf)lation  while  lie  i-emalns.  and  Christian  resolution  and 
lioj)e  to  sustain  his  spirit,  under  all  his  li'ials,  in  a  manner  worthy  of 
liimself!  T  have  long  Iteen  prei)aring  my  mind  for  lli-  atlli<li\e  e\«iil, 
which    nni-l    jirove    lo    me    ho   severe    a    loss;    ami    I    liopc    I    -hail    be 


resi<rne<l   to  the  will  of   llcasfn.' 


24:  MEMOIR   OF   HON.   DANIEL   APPLETON  WHITE. 

^farcli  19,  1805,  lie  writes  again:  — 

''Our  most  worlliy  and  beloved  friend  is  no  more!  He  lost  the 
]>o\ver  of  speech  between  four  and  five  o'eloek,  and  became  apparently 
very  easy;  his  breath  gradually  losing  its  power  till  it  was  imperceptibly 
exhausted.  Such  is  the  end  of  human  strength  and  human  greatness. 
"While  by  his  bedside,  and  watching  the  last  beat  of  his  pulse,  I  felt, 
more  forcibly  than  at  any  moment  of  my  life  before,  the  vanity,  the 
notliingness,  of  human  life,  without  the  solace  and  prospects  of  religion. 
A\'itli()ut  i-eligion,  every  thing  is  a  mystery.  This  alone  enables  us  to 
comprehend  ourselves;  to  feel  our  httleness,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
to  understand  our  importance ;  to  sustain  our  afflictions  and  pains ;  and  to 
become  worthy  of  enjoying,  in  a  future  life,  blessings  which  we  are 
allowed  only  to  imagine  in  this." 

After  the  funeral,  seriously  affected  in  his  spirits  and  in  his 
health,  he  returned  home.* 

But  Mr.  White's  affections  were  far  from  being  shut  up  in 
the  narrow  circle  of  his  private  friendships  and  intimacies. 
An  address  delivered  by  him  before  the  Merrimack  Humane 
Society,  Sept.  3,  1805,  contains  an  earnest  plea  for  a  life  of 
public  usefulness  and  Christian  philanthrop3'".f  And  what 
he  preached  he  practised.  He  was  one  of  the  founders  of 
the  Merrimack  Bible  Society ;  a  trustee  for  many  years 
of  Dummer  Academy;  an  active  member  of  the  Committee 
for  obtaining  Relief  for  the  Sufferers  by  the  Great  Fire  in 
Newburyport.  Indeed,  so  long  as  he  continued  to  reside  in 
that  place,  there  seems  to  have  been  no  important  movement 
in  the  town  or  vicinity,  having  for  its  object  the  good  of  the 
community,  with  which  his  name  is  not  connected. 


•  See  "  A  Discourse,  delivered  in  Haverhill,  March  22, 1805,  at  the  Funeral  of  Jabez 
Kimball,  A.M.,  who  died  March  19,  fet.  33.  To  which  is  added  a  Short  Memoir  of  his 
Life.  15y  John  Snelling  Popkin,  Minister  of  Newbury."  Mr.  White  was  a  great 
admirer  of  Dr.  Popkin,  and  his  parishioner  while  he  continued  at  Newbury,  —  the  church 
not  being  far  from  Newburyport.  The  "Short  Memoir,"  though  purporting  to  come 
from  the  author  of  the  discourse,  was  evidently  prepared,  at  least  in  substance,  by  Mr. 
White. 

t  It  is  evidence  of  the  favor  with  which  this  address  was  received,  that  it  passed 
through  several  editions;  the  copy  before  us  being  of  the  third. 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  25 

Meanwhile,  there  was  no  abatement  of  his  interest  in  the 
college.  He  entered  eagerly  into  the  controversy  raised  by 
Dr.  Morse  on  the  election  of  Dr.  Ware,  in  1805,  to  the  Hollis 
Professorship  of  Divinity ;  insisting  that  there  was  nothing  in 
the  conditions  imposed  by  the  founder  making  it  necessary 
that  the  election  should  turn  on  sectarian  grounds.  He  was 
also  very  solicitous  about  the  course  which  the  corporation 
might  take  in  filling  the  vacancy  occasioned  by  the  death  of 
President  Willard.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Fisher  Ames 
had  just  declined  the  appointment,  and  the  place  was  still  open. 
In  a  letter  to  Mr.  White  from  one  of  the  tutors,  dated  Feb. 
12,  1806,  we  have  a  glimpse  of  college  politics  in  those 
days : — 

"  Who  will  be  President  of  Harvard  College  ?  or  when  the  oflice 
will  be  filled  ?  are  questions  too  difficult  to  be  resolved  at  present.  I 
hope,  with  you,  that  another  election  will  not  be  made  before  it  is  ascer- 
tained whether  the  candidate  would  accept.  It  must  mortify  the  pride 
of  every  son  of  Harvard  to  see  his  Alma  Mater  begging  for  a  husband. 
Dr.  Pearson  and  Dr.  Kiikland  ai-e  ])rinci])ally  talked  of  in  this  neigh- 
borhood as  candidates  for  the  office.  The  chances  in  favor  of  the 
former  I  think  somewhat  less,  and  for  the  latter  greater,  than  they  were 
six  months  ago;  but  some  other  person  must  be  set  up  before  the 
j)ublic  opinion  will  be  concentrated.  I  wonder  Mr.  Ware,  the  divinity 
professor,  has  not  been  more  canvassed.  I  think  he  possesses  many 
qualifications  for  the  office,  and  shall  not  be  surprised  should  he  eventu- 
ally olttaiii  it.  The  coi-jioration  is  jiressed  on  every  side  to  make  a 
second  choice  immediately;  but  that  Inxly  is  not  easily  inqjclled  to  act. 
You  ask  what  I  think  of  .Ju<lge  Davis.  I  have  lu'ard  very  little  said 
of  him,  of  late,  wilh  reference  to  tliat  office.  I  li.licvi-  lie  hiid  the 
coi-])oration,  about  a  year  since,  llial  lie  wmdd  not  consent  to  be  viewed 
an  a  candidate.  As  to  his  <|ualilicalions,  I  am  not  peilecily  satisli<'d.  1 
lia\(;  not  the  honor  of  an  intimate  actpiaintance  willi  liini.  I,  iiowever, 
♦■steem  him  verv  highly,  though  not  on  accoimt  of  presidential  <|ualities. 
If  iny  opinion  of  his  character  be  not  erroneous,  he  had  ratlier  read  his 
books  than  attend  to  business;  he  woidd  sooner  seconi I  tlir  niniidn  of 
another,  tlian  make  one  himself;  ami  pciliaps  woiil.l  r.lincinisli  an 
object,  ratlier  than  contend  strenuously  to  gain  it.      Hi--  njiutalion  a.s  a 


26  MEMOIR   OP   HON.   DANIEL   APPLETON   WHITE. 

si'holar  and  a  gentleman  are  sufficiently  elevated  to  give  the  college 
some  celebrity  abroad  ;  but,  in  discharging  the  duties  of  the  office,  I  fear 
he  would  be  found  deficient.  He  would  have  more  of  the  suaviter  in 
viodo  than  of  tlic  fortiter  in  re;  both  which  quahties  are  equally 
essential  in  a  president." 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add,  that  the  choice,  in  this 
instance,  did  not  fall  on  either  of  the  candidates  mentioned 
above,  but  on  Professor  Webber. 

Mr.  "White  was  married  May  24,  1807,  to  Mrs.  Mary  van 
Schalkwyck,  daughter  of  Dr.  Josiah  Wilder  of  Lancaster,  in 
this  State,  who  graduated  at  Yale  College  in  1767,  and  died 
in  1788.  The  marriage  took  place  at  the  house  of  her  step- 
father. Dr.  Isaac  Hurd  of  Concord.  She  must  have  been  a 
lady  of  uncommon  gifts  and  attractions.  Mr.  White's  letters 
and  private  papers,  at  the  time  and  afterwards,  abound  in 
allusions  to  her,  and  always  in  terms  overflowing  with  the 
tenderest  affection  and  respect.  But  the  connection  which 
promised  so  much  happiness  was  not  to  last  long.  Her 
failing  health  soon  warned  him  of  this ;  without,  however, 
preparing  him  for  it.  She  died  June  29,  1811 ;  leaving  him 
with  the  care  of  two  daughters.  This  care,  from  the  new 
interest  it  awakened  and  from  the  spirit  in  which  he  entered 
upon  it,  was  perhaps  his  best  solace.  Yet  three  years  after- 
wards, iL  reply  to  inquiries  of  a  correspondent  respecting  his 
loss,  he  writes :  — 

"  I  cannot  deny  that  I  feel  an  invincible  reluctance  at  speaking  on 
the  subject,  though  it  daily  mingles  in  my  thoughts  and  feelmgs,  and 
occasionally  with  the  poignancy  of  renewed  grief.  At  times,  I  feel  a 
sorrow,  a  desolateness,  a  heart-smking  regret,  of  which  I  could  have  had 
no  conception  without  this  experience.  She  was  indeed  all  my  heart 
could  wish,  and  more  than  I  expected  to  realize  in  any  human 
being." 

From  1810  to  1815,  Mr.  White  was  a  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  Senate.  In  that  day,  for  so  young  a  man,  this 
was  a  high  political  distinction ;  but  it  seems  to  have  had  few 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  27 

attractions  in  his  view,  except  the  prospect  of  serving  tlie 
public.  Indeed,  in  the  beginning,  there  was  one  circum- 
stance which  made  the  appointment  positively  irksome :  it 
drew  him  away  from  his  family,  when  they  stood  most  in  need 
of  his  presence  and  care ;  and  this  apparently  to  but  little 
purpose,  as  the  government  of  the  State  had  just  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  Democratic  party,  leaving  him  in  a  helpless 
minority  on  all  the  great  questions  at  issue.  Party  rancor 
was  also  then  at  the  highest  pitch,  —  worse  even,  in  some 
respects,  than  if  parties  had  been  bounded  by  sectional  or 
geographical  lines.  It  was  hostility  between  neighbor 
and  neighbor  ;  social,  and,  in  some  cases,  family  inter- 
course was  broken  up  by  it  ;  differences  flamed  up  into 
hatred ;  almost  every  considerable  man  in  the  country  was 
denounced  as  "  bought  by  British  gold,"  or  as  a  "  tool  of 
French  influence,"  according  as  he  belonged  to  one  side  or 
the  other.  It  was  the  time  of  the  Embargo  and  Non-inter- 
course, of  the  Gerrymander  and  John  Henry,  of  "  Madison's 
War "  and  the  Hartford  Convention. 

In  those  days,  the  newspaper  reports  of  the  debates  in  tlio 
Legislature,  even  on  the  most  exciting  topics,  were  meagre  and 
unsatisfactory:  often  not  so  much  as  the  names  of  the  speakers 
are  given.  But  we  learn  from  other  sources,  that  Mr.  Whito 
was  an  active  and  influential  member  of  the  Senate.  As  a 
debater,  he  conducted  himself,  we  are  told,  "  with  great  dig- 
nity and  parliamentary  decorum ;  but  when  occasion  called 
for  it,  and  his  adversary  exposed  himself  by  arrogance  or 
inconsistency,  or  by  blunders  combined  with  botii,  his  rebukes 
were  worded  with  peculiar  aptness,  and  sustained  with  great 
power  and  pungency  :  "  *  and  when  the  State  returned,  as  it 
soon  did,  to  Federalism,  the  conspicuous  placo  assigned  liim 


•  WillnrrlN  "Memories  of  Youth  iind  Mnnlioorl,"  vol.  ii.  p.  111.  Professor  VVilliird 
wa.s  one  of  .Judge  White's  coteniporaricH  iit  college,  and  kejit  up  his  fricinl.->iiip  hikI 
intimacy  to  the  la-st. 


28  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

on  some  of  the  most  important  committees  shows  that  he  was 
looked  up  to  by  his  party  as  a  prudent  and  safe  leader.  In 
February,  1814,  he  was  chairman  of  a  joint  committee  of  the 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  to  which  were  referred 
the  memorials  and  remonstrances  from  a  large  number  of 
towns  in  the  Commonwealth,  protesting  against  the  course 
of  the  national  administration,  and  recommending  a  Congress 
of  Delegates  "  for  the  purpose  of  devising  proper  measures 
to  procure  the  united  efforts  of  the  commercial  States  to 
procure  such  amendments  and  explanations  of  the  Consti- 
tution as  will  secure  them  against  future  evils."  The 
committee,  in  their  report,  insist  on  "  the  right,  and  think 
the  Legislature  ought  to  vindicate  it,  of  acting  in  concert 
with  other  States,  in  order  to  produce  a  powerful,  and,  if 
possible,  an  irresistible  claim  for  such  alterations  as  will  tend 
to  preserve  the  Union  and  restore  violated  privileges ;  yet 
they  consider  that  there  are  reasons  which  render  it  inexpe- 
dient, at  the  present  moment,  to  exercise  this  power."  But 
the  popular  uneasiness,  occasioned  by  the  unequal  pressure 
of  the  hardships  of  the  war,  went  on  increasing;  making  it 
necessary  for  Governor  Strong  to  convoke  in  October  an 
extra  session  of  the  General  Court.  At  this  session,  the 
scheme  of  concerted  action,  by  means  of  a  convention  of 
delegates,  now  limited  to  New  England,  was  revived  and 
adopted ;  and  the  convention  itself  was  soon  afterwards  held 
at  Hartford,  in  Connecticut.  Its  proceedings  were  laid  before 
the  Massachusetts  Legislature  in  January  of  the  next  year, 
and  referred  to  a  joint  committee,  Mr.  White  being  again  the 
chairman.     In  their  report,  they  say, — 

"  The  expediency  of  having  invited  a  convention  of  delegates  from 
the  New-England  States  is  fully  proved  by  the  result  of  their  labors, 
communicated  with  his  Excellency's  message.  The  committee  entertain 
a  high  sense  of  the  wisdom  and  ability  with  which  this  convention  have 
discharged  their  arduous  trust ;  and  while  they  maintain  the  principle 
of  State  sovereignty,  and  of  the  duties  which  citizens  owe  to   their 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  29 

respective  State  governments,  they  give  the  most  satisfectoiy  proofs  of 
attachment  to  the  Constitution  of  tlie  United  States  and  to  the  national 
Union." 

Room  will  always  be  left  for  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the 
wisdom  and  propriety  of  calling  the  Hartford  Convention ; 
.but  we  owe  it  to  the  memory  of  the  thoughtful  and  patriotic 
men  whose  names  are  connected  with  this  step,  to  protest 
against  the  absurdity  of  construing  it  into  a  precedent  of 
secession  or  rebellion.  Their  purpose  was,  not  to  excite  the 
popular  discontent,  —  for  this  existed  already  to  an  alarming 
degree,  —  but  to  temper  and  direct  it.  The  professed  object 
—  and  they  have  never  been  convicted  of  any  other — was  to 
effect  certain  reforms,  as  a  means  of  saving  the  Union ;  and 
this,  too,  by  a  course  strictly  within  the  spirit  and  letter  of 
the  Federal  Constitution.  Mr.  White  was  in  correspondence 
with  Mr.  Webster  during  this  critical  period  of  the  public 
affairs ;  and  both  concurred  in  the  doctrine  thus  stated  by  the 
latter  in  a  confidential  note :  "  In  truth,  sir,  I  think  you  can 
do  no  more  than  the  people  compel  you,  and  go  no  farther 
than  they  force  yon.  Whatever  is  done  should  be  done  by 
the  people."  Many  years  afterwards,  in  an  entry  in  his 
journal,  made  at  the  time  of  that  great  statesman's  death, 
Judge  White  returns  to  this  topic.  As  his  testimony  respect- 
ing the  whole  subject  is  full  and  decisive,  we  introduce  it 
here :  — 

"  I  am  sorry  to  see  it  stated  in  one  of  the  Boston  newspa|)ors.  tliat 
Mr.  Webster,  '  although  classed  sis  a  Federalist,  stood  aloof  from  tli<' 
famous  Hartford  Convention  ; '  thus  giving  an  imjiressioii  that  he  was  not 
a  Federalist  of  the  Hartford-Convention  stam|i:  coiitiMiy  lo  tin-  initli, 
and  what  is  due  to  liiiii.  I  was  iiidu<-cd,  on  seeing  lliis.  to  look  up  some 
letters  received  from  3Ir.  Webster  in  1814,  wlnii  I  w.i^  in  tin-  Massa- 
chusetts Senate  and  taking  an  active  part  in  tlie  politics  of  tin'  day. 
The  greatest  excitement  then  prevaile<l  in  Massachusetts,  in  conse- 
quence of  th(!  war,  embargo,  &c.  Governor  Strong,  ^Ir.  Otis,  ami 
others,  with  whom  I  cordially  agreed,  w<'re  intent  upon  <levising  some 
plan  which  might  satisfy  tlie  people,  without  ((luiing  in  conflict  with  the 


30  MEMOIR   OF   HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON   WHITE. 

General  Government ;  indeed,  without  committing  any  act  of  nullifica- 
tion, a.s  afterwards  called.  Governor  Sti-ong,  the  most  experienced  and 
sagacious  among  us  at  that  time  in  the  General  Court,  was  the  father 
of  the  Hartford  Convention.  I  had  many  talks  with  him  on  the  subject, 
and  well  remember  the  grounds  on  which  he  recommended  such  a 
convention.  He  said  it  was  perfectly  constitutional,  and  familiar  to  the 
people  during  our  Revolutionary  struggle  ;  that  it  would  serve  to  quiet 
the  minds  of  the  people,  and  prevent  any  illegal  outbreak,  while  it 
afforded  time  for  consideration  of  the  best  means  of  relief  to  the 
])eople  from  the  intolerable  burdens  of  which  they  so  bitterly  com- 
plained." 

In  November,  1814,  Mr.  White  was  elected  representative 
in  Congress  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote  of  the  people  of  his 
district.  He  was  duly  commissioned,  and  in  the  act  of  pre- 
paring to  attend  an  expected  extra  session  of  the  new 
Congress  in  the  following  spring,  when  the  appointment  of 
Judge  of  Probate  for  the  County  of  Essex  was  offered  him. 
The  two  offices  being  incompatible,  he  concluded,  after  some 
hesitation,  to  resign  the  former,  and  accept  the  latter.  Many 
of  his  friends  regarded  this  decision  as  a  mistake :  they  held, 
that  he  sacrificed  to  an  undue  love  of  leisure  and  quiet  the 
most  flattering  professional  and  political  prospects.  Looking 
at  wealth  and  distinction  alone,  and  from  their  point  of  view, 
they  were  probably  right.  But  we  must  remember  that 
public  life,  in  itself  considered,  had  no  charms  for  him ;  and 
also  that  the  cares  and  responsibilities  of  a  lawyer  in  large 
practice  were  positively  distasteful.  A  few  days  after  having 
been  admitted  to  the  Bar,  he  had  written  to  a  young  friend, 
"  Last  week  I  took  the  attorney's  oaths,  and  was  admitted 
into  a  profession,  the  chicanery  and  drudgery  of  which  I  abhor, 
and  fear  I  always  shall."  Accordingly,  we  cannot  wonder  at 
his  accepting  a  situation  which  was,  beyond  question,  the  most 
congenial  to  his  nature  and  habits  the  law  could  afford.  If 
his  success,  or  the  extent  of  his  usefulness,  was  restricted 
thereby,  the  blame  should  be  carried  back  to  his  long  service 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DAXIEL    APPLETOX   WHITE.  31 

as  tutor  at  college,  where  lie  acquired  an  invincible  prefer- 
ence for  a  life  among  books,  over  one  in  the  noisy  and  active 
world. 

Still,  though  Mr.  White  was  never  fond  of  the  business  of 
a  lawyer  and  advocate,  and  retired  from  the  Bar  before  he 
was  forty,  he  was  under  great  obligations  to  the  profession. 
It  had  brought  him  into  notice  ;  it  had  been  sufficiently  remu- 
nerative ;  it  had  trained  his  faculties  to  greater  precision  and 
vigor  and  practical  efficiency ;  it  had  introduced  him  into  the 
society  and  intimacy  of  some  of  the  most  eminent  men  in  the 
Commonwealth.  And  as  for  its  moral  influences,  he  had  found 
that  these  depend  not  so  much  on  the  profession  itself  as  on 
the  character  of  those  who  fill  it;  indeed,  that  the  upright 
and  Christian  lawyer  has  peculiar  opportunities  and  facilities 
for  exposing  the  abuses  of  law,  for  dissuading  and  repressing 
a  litigious  spirit,  and  for  becoming,  in  other  ways,  the  wise 
friend,  the  judicious  and  kind  neighbor. 

In  the  early  years  of  his  residence  in  Newbury  port,  "  Lord 
Timothy  Dexter,"  so  called,  was  one  of  the  notabilities  of  the 
place.  His  Will  is  almost  the  only  respectable  thing  recorded 
of  him ;  making  it  more  than  probable,  that  for  this  we  are 
indebted,  in  part  at  least,  to  Mr.  White,  who  was  his  legal 
adviser,  and  drew  it  up.  At  any  rate,  the  satisfaction  the 
latter  takes  in  finding  something  to  approve  in  so  absurd  and 
vainglorious  a  life  deserves  mention,  as  highly  characteristic. 
He  thus  writes  to  a  friend  :  — 

"  Since  my  la.«t,  our  '  greatest  mini  in  \\u'.  East'  has  hrcallu'd  his  hist, 
and  \iift,  perhajw,  as  goofl  a  moral  as  most  great  imii  who  ha\f  prcccdr.l 
liiiii.  I  always  thought  him,  you  know,  a  singuhir  ami  cmioiis  uiiKlili- 
eation  of  human  nature;  and,  in  this  view,  worthy  of  the  contcniplalion 
of  the  mctaj>hysieian  and  i»hiloso|)her.  His  niiiul  and  inanin  is  w<t<- 
original  in  th<;ir  way,  and  tin-  ndigious  and  philosophical  opinions  he 
avowed  were  a  most  ingenious  hurles()ue  upon  the  ahsurdilies  and 
inconsistencies  of  some  of  tlie  hrightest  idiilosophi/ing  of  modern  limes. 
His  most  ludicrous  display  of  riclics,  ami   tiir  truly  ridicuhais  light  in 


32  MEMOIR   OF   HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON  WHITE. 

which  it  placed  him,  seem  designed  by  Providence  to  exemplify  the  real 
value  of  Avcalth  without  virtue  or  talent ;  while  the  disposition  of  his 
property  at  death  aifords  a  lesson  of  humanity  and  wisdom  to  the 
greatest  and  best  rich  men  among  us.  Ilis  AVill  is,  I  beheve,  the  most 
generous  and  judicious  ever  known  in  this  town.  Beside  a  proper 
family  arrangement  of  his  estate,  he  has  given  two  thousand  dollars  to 
his  native  town  for  the  support  of  the  gospel ;  as  much  more  to  this 
town  for  the  support  of  the  poor ;  a  liberal  legacy  to  a  poor  lame  boy ; 
with  other  benevolent  legacies.  This,  I  think,  ought  to  consecrate  his 
niemory,  and  tinge  with  a  blush  the  face  of  many  a  sordid  son  of 
]\Iammon,  whose  amusement  is  to  laugh  at  Dexter's  follies  and 
images." 


We  may  add,  that  Mr.  White's  professional  reputation,  and 
the  confidence  inspired  thereby,  extended  beyond  his  own 
State.  At  the  June  session  of  the  New-Hampshire  Legisla- 
ture, in  1815,  he  was  appointed  chairman  of  a  committee, 
consisting  of  himself,  the  Hon.  Nathaniel  A.  Haven  of  Ports- 
mouth, and  the  Rev.  Ephraim  P.  Bradford  of  New  Boston,  to 
inquire  into  the  difficulties  which  had  arisen  between  Presi- 
dent Wheelock  of  Dartmouth  College  and  its  trustees.  The 
committee  met  at  Hanover  in  August ;  and,  after  the  parties 
had  been  heard,  a  report  was  drawn  up,  giving  a  carefully 
prepared  statement  of  the  facts  in  the  case,  as  far  as  they 
could  be  ascertained.  It  was  printed,  but  never  made  the 
ground  of  legislative  action.  The  State  underwent,  at  this 
time,  a  political  revolution ;  and  the  party  coming  into  power, 
instead  of  trying  to  adjust  the  dispute  which  had  grown  up 
among  the  friends  of  the  college,  chose  to  turn  it  into  an 
occasion  for  "  amending,"  that  is  to  say,  invading,  the  college 
charter.  The  report  is  a  document  of  importance  to  those 
who  would  understand  the  history  of  the  famous  "  Dartmouth- 
College  case  "  from  the  beginning. 

Mr.  White,  after  his  appointment  as  Judge  of  Probate, 
continued  to  reside  at  Newburyport  until  Jan.  3,  1817.  He 
then  returned  to  Salem,  where  he  passed  the  remainder  of 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  33 

his  days.  The  Salem  of  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  brings  up  to 
our  recollections  the  names  of  Bowditch  and  Story  and  Pick- 
ering and  Pickman  and  Silsbie  and  Saltonstall  and  Crownin- 
shield,  and  a  multitude  of  others  hardly  less  worthy  of  note. 
The  men  who  bore  these  names,  and  made  them  distinguished, 
were  all  living  there  at  that  time,  and  gave  tone  to  society. 
Happily,  also,  the  political  dissensions,  which  had  once  im- 
bittered  it  more  or  less,  were  fast  giving  way  to  a  new  con- 
stitution of  parties,  which  began  with  the  return  of  peace. 
Under  these  circumstances,  to  one  fond  of  books  and  quiet, 
and  equally  so  of  frequent  intercourse  w^ith  cultivated  and 
refined  persons  of  both  sexes,  there  could  hardly  have  been 
a  more  eligible  place  of  residence. 

To  complete  his  happiness,  he  was  married,  Aug.  1,1819, 
to  Mrs.  Eliza  Wetmore,  only  daughter  of  William  Orne,  Esq., 
one  of  the  eminent  merchants  of  Salem.  This  lady  brought 
a  handsome  accession  to  his  fortune.  She  also  brought  per- 
sonal qualities  which  made  her  to  be  universally  respected 
and  beloved,  and  wdiich  were  especially  fitted  to  secure 
and  grace  a  refined,  hospitable,  and  Christian  home.  He 
now  closed  his  law-office,  and  took  his  books  and  papers 
to  his  house  in  Court  Street,  formerly  the  residence  of 
his  wife's  father,  where  an  apartment  had  been  fitted  up  as  a 
library  to  receive  them.  The  house  and  library  ho  continued 
to  occupy  to  the  last ;  but  the  marriage  which  led  to  these 
changes,  and  which  promised  so  much  happiness,  was  of  brief 
duration.  His  second  wife  was,  like  his  first,  of  a  delicate 
constitution.  The  tender  sohcitude  with  which  lie  watched 
over  her  health,  and  sought  to  lighten  her  cares,  was  of  no 
avail.  To  his  inexpressible  grief,  she  died  March  27,  1821, 
soon  after  having  given  birth  to  a  son.  The  terms  in  which 
the  newspapers  of  the  day,  in  Boston  as  well  as  Salom,  speak 
of  tliis  event,  sliow  that  the  early  death  of  a  person  of  so 
much  modesty  and  wortli,  and  of  such  active  bonovolcnco, 
was  felt  to  be  a  public  loss. 


34  MEMOIR   OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE. 

For    some    years   previous    to   the    resignation   of  Judge 
White's  predecessor,  it  was  generally  expected  that  whoever 
should  succeed  him  would  find  it  to  be  his  duty  to  introduce 
important   changes   in   the   mode   of  conducting  the   probate 
business  of  the   county.     Judge  White  accepted  the  office 
with  this  express  understanding,  and  soon  afterward  began 
and  carried  into  effect  the  necessary  reforms  ;  his  object  being 
"  to  render  the  new  system  of  practice  as  simple  as  possible, 
consistently  Avith  the  main   design  of  securing  a  legal  and 
correct  course   of  proceedings,  as  well  on  the  part  of  the 
court  as  of  those  who  act  under  its  authority."     The  principal 
changes  consisted  in  requiring  that  important  judicial  acts, 
which  had  often  been  by  parol  only,   should  always  be  in 
writing,  and  matter  of  record ;  in  a  more  scrupulous  care,  on 
the  part  of  the  judge,  never  to  confer  or  advise  with  parties 
out  of  court,  and  not  in  the  presence  of  each  other,  concerning 
matters  subject  to  his  judicial  determination ;  and  in  ordering 
due  notice  to  parties  adversely  interested,  whenever  it  seemed 
to  be  required,  either  by  statute  provisions  or  by  the  general 
rules  of  law.     To  persons  unacquainted  with  the  law,  and 
unable  to  appreciate  the  use  and  necessity  of  legal  forms,  the 
delays  and  expense  thus  occasioned  were  simply  annoying. 
There  is  also  reason  to  suspect  that  old  political  grudges  had 
something  to  do  with  the  discontent. 

This  state  of  feeling  gave  rise  to  a  memorial,  addressed  to 
the  House  of  Representatives  at  the  summer  session  of  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature  in  1821,  representing  that  com- 
plaints had  been  made,  by  people  having  business  in  the 
Probate  Court  of  the  County  of  Essex,  that  the  Judge 
allowed  the  Register  to  demand  unauthorized  fees ;  and  that 
both  Judge  and  Register  refused  to  give  applicants  the  usual 
and  necessary  information  in  the  settlement  of  estates.  The 
memorial  was  referred  to  a  special  committee,  by  whom  an 
inquiry  was  instituted  ;  in  the  course  of  which,  such  witnesses 
only  were  examined  as  were  named  by  and  in  behalf  of  the 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  35 

memorialists.  The  result  of  the  inquiry,  even  in  the  one- 
sided and  distorted  view  of  an  ex-parte  bearing,  was  such  as 
to  induce  the  committee  to  recommend  that  no  further  action 
should  be  taken  in  the  premises  ;  and  their  report  was  accept- 
ed without  a  dissenting  voice.* 

Here  ended  these  vexatious  proceedings.  But  Judge  White 
was  determined  that  the  world  should  know  precisely  what  he 
had  done,  and  his  reasons  for  doing  it.  Accordingly,  early  in 
the  following  year,  he  published  a  pamphlet  of  one  hundred 
and  fortj-eight  pages,  entitled  "  A  Yiew  of  the  Jurisdic- 
tion and  Proceedings  of  the  Courts  of  Probate  in  Massachu- 
setts, with  Particular  Reference  to  the  County  of  Essex." 
The  pamphlet  begins  witli  an  historical  sketch  of  the  progress 
of  probate  law  and  jurisdiction  from  the  first  settlement  of 
the  country.  Then  follows  a  full  account  of  the  former  prac- 
tice of  the  Essex  Probate  Court,  and  of  the  changes  he  had 
introduced ;  every  one  of  the  latter  being  abundantly  justi- 
fied by  citations  from  the  statutes  and  judicial  reports  of  the 
Commonwealth.  The  whole  concludes  with  some  observations 
on  the  course  taken  by  the  House  of  Representatives  respect- 
ing the  memorial.  And  here  he  does  not  object  to  the 
investigation :  his  complaint  is,  that  the  House  forgot  that  it 
was  an  ex-parte  investigation,  and  therefore  not  to  be  used  at 
all,  except  as  ground  of  proceeding  against  the  accused  by 
form  of  impeachment.  They  had  a  right  to  bring  him  to  trial, 
where  he  would  be  heard  in  his  own  defence  ;  but,  declining 
to  do  this,  they  had  no  right  to  assume  the  truth  of  an  ex- 
parie  statement  of  facts,  and  to  enter  it  upon  their  records  as 
such,  with  the  comments  of  tlie  committee,  partly  flivorablo 


•  The  only  surviving  member  of  tliiH  committee,  Hun.  James  Suvhko,  informs  us 
tlint  it  was  this  invcstit,'ation  wliic.ii  led  to  a  very  important  and  beneficial  cliimgo  in  tlio 
Probate  Courts,  — tlie  substituting  of  "moderate  but  competent  saliiries  "  in  the  place 
of  fees.  He  adds,  "  I  suppose  that  the  opinions  of  the  comiilnirmnls  and  witnesses  to 
the  charges  (luainst  those  Essex-County  officers  became  unanimous  in  concuncnce 
with  the  committee." 


36  MEMOIR   OF    HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON   WHITE. 

and    partly  iinfavorable,  on  his  alleged  conduct.     His  own 
words  are,  — 

"As  the  graml  inquest  of  the  CommonweaUh,  tlie  power  of  the 
House  of  lU'presentatives  seems  to  be  limited  to  making  inquisition 
in  the  nianncr  of  a  grand  jury,  and  presenting,  if  they  find  sufiicient 
cause,  for  a  heai-ing  and  trial  before  the  proper  tribunal.  If  so,  the 
power  of  exhibiting  the  facts  resulting  from  any  such  inquisition,  with 
their  opinion  upon  them  as  a  detinitive  verdict,  must  be  wholly  as- 
sumed ;  and,  Avhen  exercised  against  those  who  have  no  opportunity  for 
defence  or  justification,  it  may  become  alike  unconstitutional  and 
unjust." 

For  several  years,  Judge  White's  household  was  presided 
over  with  singular  judgment  and  grace  by  a  niece,  after- 
wards the  wife  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Peabody  of  Springfield.  This 
state  of  things  continued  until  Jan.  22,  1824;  when  he  was 
married  to  Mrs.  Ruth  Rogers,  daughter  of  Joseph  Hurd, 
Esq.,  of  Charlestown,  a  successful  and  highly  respected  mer- 
chant. 

Happy  in  his  domestic  relations ;  with  abundant  leisure  for 
reading  and  study ;  interested  in  all  the  great  questions  of 
the  day;  troubled  by  no  "hope  to  rise,  or  fear  to  fall,"  —  his 
life  flowed  tranquilly  on ;  leaving  little  else  to  record  but  his 
opinions  on  passing  events,  and  his  efforts  to  promote  what  he 
conceived  to  be  important  public  objects.  Among  the  latter, 
Harvard  College  continued  to  hold  the  foremost  place,  espe- 
cially its  theological  department.  What,  in  his  view,  recom- 
mended the  Divinity  School  at  Cambridge,  more  than  any 
thing  else,  was  the  fundamental  principle  of  its  constitution, 
which  reads  thus :  "  It  being  understood,  that  every  encou- 
ragement be  given  to  the  serious,  impartial,  and  unbiased 
investigation  of  Christian  truth,  and  that  no  assent  to  the 
peculiarities  of  any  denomination  of  Christians  be  required 
of  the  students  or  professors  or  instructors."  As  far  back  as 
1816,  "A  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Theological  Education 
in   Harvard    College "  was   instituted,   of  which   he   was   a 


MEMOIR   OF  HOX.    DANIEL   APPLETOX   WHITE.  37 

director.  The  object  of  this  association  was  "  to  provide 
funds  for  assisting  meritorious  students  in  divinity,  of  limited 
means,  to  reside  at  Cambridge  while  preparing  for  the  min- 
istry." This  society  was  reconstituted  in  1824,  with  much 
larger  scope  and  powers.  Divinity  Hall  was  erected  under 
its  auspices,  and  the  general  management  of  the  affairs  of 
the  school  was  intrusted  to  it.  In  1826,  with  the  knowledge 
and  consent  of  the  corporation  of  the  college,  an  act  of  incor- 
poration was  obtained,  guaranteeing  to  the  directors  of  the 
new  society  a  legal  existence,  and  a  concurrent  jurisdiction 
with  the  proper  academic  authorities  in  the  administration 
of  the  school  and  its  funds.  But  the  corporation  suddenly 
changed  its  policy,  and  refused  assent  to  the  act ;  thus  render- 
ing it  null :  whereupon  the  whole  project  was  abandoned,  and 
the  property  owned  by  the  society  was  made  over  to  the  col- 
lege. Judge  White,  who,  as  the  only  lawyer  among  the 
directors,  had  been  chiefly  relied  on  in  drawing  up  the  papers 
and  forwarding  the  measure,  was  never  reconciled  to  the 
course  finally  taken  by  the  corporation.  To  the  last,  he 
maintained  that  this  plan  for  the  support  and  conduct  of  the 
school,  after  having  been  mutually  agreed  upon  by  both  par- 
ties, ought  to  have  been  carried  out.  He  also  believed  that 
it  promised  to  be  the  best  and  most  satisfactory  adjustment 
of  the  difficulties  growing  out  of  the  connection  between  the 
school  and  the  college  wliich  has  ever  been  suggested. 

The  old  Revolutionary  patriots  were  now  rapidly  passing 
away ;  and  no  one  regretted  the  loss  of  their  society  and 
influence  more  than  he.  Writing  to  his  brother-in-law,  Samuel 
Orne,  Esq.,  of  Springfield,  Feb.  2,  1829,  he  says,— 

"Colonel  Pickering's  funeral  was  on  Saturday;  inlendeil  ]>y  (In-  fa- 
mily to  be  as  pnvate  as  possible,  agreeably  to  liis  well-known  (t|»inii»iis 
on  the  subject.  Still,  a  large  concourse  of  our  most  respectalde  people 
assembled  at  the  house,  anrl  followed  his  remains  to  tlic  tnnili.  which  is 
directly  opposite  the  old  I'ickering  Mansion,  where  he  was  Im.iii,  and 
Itiit  a  few  rods  from  it.     As  I  left  the  place,  it  was  a  soothing  reflection, 


:i.^>H(iH 


•  > 


38  MEMOIU   OF   HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON   WHITE. 

tluit,  af"l(M-  all  his  luizards  and  suffei'ing  and  toil,  he  had  returned  at  last 
to  repose  in  peace  with  his  fathers,  lie  was  one  of  the  rare  number, 
mentioned  by  INIr.  Ames  in  his  '  Eulogy  on  Washington,'  '  who  were 
born,  and  who  acted  through  life  as  if  they  were  born,  not  for  them- 
selves, but  for  their  country  and  mankind.'  He  was  more  truly  and 
more  entirely  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  public,  to  the  neglect  of 
private  interests,  and  more  ready  to  give  his  exertions  to  advance  any 
good  object  or  general  interest,  and  more  efficient  in  his  labors  for  the 
purpos(>,  than  any  man  I  ever  knew.  He  was  a  true  republican,  in  the 
best  sense  of  the  term,  and  a  lover  of  liberty  throughout  the  world,  — 
as  much  opposed  to  the  Holy  Alliance  as  to  Bonaparte,  and  as  zealous 
for  the  poor  Greeks  as  he  always  had  been  for  the  liberties  of  his  own 
country." 

About  this  time,  lyceums  were  growing  into  favor.  Asso- 
ciations under  this  name  had  been  organized  in  some  of  the 
southern  towns  of  Worcester  County  as  early  as  the  autumn 
of  1826,  in  imitation,  doubtless,  of  the  mechanics'  institutes 
in  England,  which  Lord  Brougham  and  the  Edinburgh  Re- 
view had  done  so  much  to  bring  into  notice.  In  1829,  they 
had  made  such  progress  in  the  Commonwealth,  that  a  public 
meeting  was  held  in  Boston,  consisting  of  members  of  the 
Legislature  and  other  gentlemen,  with  a  view  to  give  form 
and  system  to  the  movement  by  means  of  state  and  county 
institutions.  In  a  scheme  like  this,  promising  to  become  an 
effective  instrument  for  the  diffusion  of  useful  knowledge 
among  the  people.  Judge  White  could  not  fail  to  take  a  lead- 
ing part.  He  was  the  first  president  of  the  Salem  Lyceum, 
one  of  the  largest  and  best  conducted  in  the  State ;  and  also 
of  the  Essex-County  Lyceum.  Before  the  latter,  at  Ipswich, 
May  5, 1830,  he  delivered  the  introductory  address;  in  which 
he  explains  the  purpose  of  lyceums,  answers  the  common 
objections,  and  endeavors  to  impress  on  the  whole  movement 
a  practical  and  wise  direction.  Many  persons  were  under- 
stood to  fear,  that  a  general  difiusion  of  knowledge  would 
unfit  the  laboring-classes  for  their  proper  work,  or  make  them 
discontented  with  it.     This  objection,  originating,  consciously 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  39 

or  unconsciously,  in  an  aristocratic  spirit,  and  entirely  out  of 
place  under  a  government  like  ours,  is  met  by  him  with  cha- 
racteristic plainness  of  speech :  "  Upon  the  same  principle, 
the  slaveholder,  in  a  land  of  liberty,  would  shut  out  from  the 
mind  of  his  slave  every  ray  of  light  which  might  disclose  to 
him  higher  duties  than  implicit  submission  to  his  earthly  mas- 
ter. Thanks  to  our  fathers,  who  have  transmitted  to  us  the 
blessings  of  freedom  and  knowledge,  we  live  under  institu- 
tions which  recognize  no  distinctions  but  what  our  Creator 
has  made,  or  enabled  us  to  make  for  ourselves." 

A  pamphlet  was  published  in  1832,  entitled  "  Correspond- 
ence between  the  First  Church  and  the  Tabernacle  Church  in 
Salem ;  in  w^hich  the  Duties  of  Churches  are  discussed,  and 
the  rights  of  Conscience  vindicated."     This  correspondence 
grew  out  of  a  refusal  on  the  part  of  the  Tabernacle  Church 
to  give  the  usual  letter  of  dismission  and  recommendation  to 
one  of  its  members,  who  wished  to  become  connected  with 
the  First  Church ;  the  principal  reason  assigned  for  the  refu- 
sal  being  an  alleged  defection  on  the  part  of  the  latter  from 
the  great  doctrines  of  Christianity.     What  was  local  and  per- 
sonal in  the  controversy  is  of  little  interest  now,  and  may  as 
w^ell  be  forgotten ;    but  there  is  one  letter  in  the  collection, 
written  by  Judge  White,  and  filling  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  pages,  which  is  of  permanent  value.     It  is  an  elaborate 
defence  of  Protestant  and  Congregationul  liberty,  remaikuhli^ 
for  the  array  of  authorities,  mostly  Orthodox,  by  which  every 
position  is  illustrated  and  confirmed.     It  is  also  important  as 
a  reflection  of  the  writer's  own  mind  and  character.     Judge 
White  was  a  consistent  Protestant  Christian,  if  there  ever  was 
one.      He  asserted  the  right  to  interpret  the  Scriptures  for 
himself,  without  the  forfeiture  of  the  Christian  name  or  Chris- 
tian  privileges.     And   he   did   not  stop  there.     1I<'  respected 
and  vindicated  this  right  in  otlnu-s,  —  not  only  in   those  who 
believe  more,  which  is  easy  enough  ;  iml  also  in  those  who  be- 
lieve Icfis,  which  is   one  of   the   hardest  trials  to  which  our 


40  JIKMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

liumility  and  sincerity  are  ever  put.     He  spoke  from  the  bot- 
tom of  his  heart  when  he  said,  — 

"  Strange,  indeed,  tliat  Christians,  whose  very  profession  constitutes 
a  bond  of  union,  whose  divine  Master  has  taught  them  that  their  love 
to  one  another  will  be  the  test  of  their  discipleship  to  him,  and  whose 
religion  inculcates  tlie  spirit  of  love  and  charity  as  an  indispensable 
qualitication  for  heaven,  should  yet  delibei-ately  act  from  an  opposite 
spirit, — judging,  censuring,  avoiding,  and  reviling  one  another ;  and  this, 
too,  on  account  of  religious  opinions  which  all  have  an  equal  right  to 
form  for  themselves,  and  none  the  least  authority  to  control  in  others ! 
Strange  to  astonishment,  indeed,  that  those  should  persist  in  this  fatal 
error  who  glory  in  being  reformed  from  it ;  that  Protestants,  in  the 
full  light  and  liberty  of  the  gospel,  avowing  the  equal  right  of  all 
to  free  iiupiiry,  private  judgment,  and  honest  profession,  and,  conse- 
(piently,  tlieir  own  obligation  to  receive  all  as  brethren  who  conscienti- 
ously manifest  their  Christian  faith,  should  thus  trample  on  the  laws  of 
brotherly  love  in  the  face  of  their  own  declared  principles  ! " 

There  was  something  in  Judge  White's  personal  character, 
as  well  as  in  the  nature  of  his  friendships  and  intimacies, 
which  seemed  to  mark  him  out  as  a  fit  person  to  speak  of  the 
dead.  Even  when  an  undergraduate,  he  was  selected  to  pro- 
nounce a  funeral  discourse  on  his  classmate  Wellington,  —  a 
young  man  of  much  promise,  who  was  drowned  in  Fresh 
Pond  early  in  his  senior  year.  While  tutor,  he  was  called 
upon  to  perform  a  like  service  on  occasion  of  the  death  of 
Samuel  Shapleigh,  the  librarian.  Again:  in  the  national 
mourning  which  followed  the  death  of  Washington,  he  deli- 
vered the  eulogy  before  the  people  of  his  native  town,  at 
their  earnest  request.  As  he  advanced  in  life,  there  were 
also  other  reasons  for  looking  to  him  on  such  occasions  ;  espe- 
cially the  terms  of  confidence  and  familiarity  on  which  he  had 
lived  with  many  distinguished  men  of  the  past  generation, 
even  though  greatly  his  seniors,  and  the  extent  to  which  he 
could  avail  himself  of  personal  reminiscences.  The  conse- 
quence was,  that  for  many  years  before  his  death,  if  a  biogra- 
phy or  commemorative  discourse  was  to  be  w^ritten,  he  was 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON   WHITE.  41 

almost  sure  to  be  consulted.  This  is  sometimes  acknowledged 
by  the  publication  of  his  letters,  or  extracts  from  them,  in 
answer  to  such  applications ;  as  in  the  memoirs  of  Professor 
Frisbie ;  ^  and,  at  still  greater  length,  in  those  of  Profes- 
sor Popkin,  of  Dr.  Channing,  and  of  Chief-Justice  Parsons. 
Important  and  carefully  prepared  obituary  notices  from  his 
pen  were  likewise  given  from  time  to  time  in  the  newspapers 
of  the  day,  —  mostly  in  the  Salem  Gazette. 

When,  therefore.  Dr.  Bowditch  died,  March  IG,  1838,  and 
the  city  of  Salem  resolved  to  notice  the  event  hf  a  public 
discourse  on  his  life  and  character,  the  service  was  assigned, 
almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  Judge  White.  The  eulogy  is 
an  admirable  one  in  all  respects,  and  particularly  for  the  force 
he  gives  to  the  example  of  that  remarkable  man  by  dwelling 
on  his  early  struggles  and  triumphs.  The  description  of  the 
last  interview  on  earth  between  the  two  friends  is  full  of 
instruction :  — 

"  It  was  my  privilege  to  visit  him  the  week  before  he  died ;  and  my 
mind  irresistibly  turns  to  the  sublime  and  affecting  scene,  which  will 
never  fade  from  my  memoiy.  I  found  liim  seated  in  bis  library,  more 
emaciated  than  I  had  ever  seen  any  one  before.  The  frame  of  bis 
ncjble  head,  with  his  lofty  forehead,  never  appeared  in  so  striking  a 
view  ;  while  his  penetrating  eye  had  all  its  wonted  lustre,  and  bis  wbulc 
aspect  was  unearthly  and  sublimely  impressive.  His  voice,  tliongh 
feeble,  wius  clear  and  distinct ;  and  bis  woi-ds  flowed  with  their  accus- 
tomed rapidity.  Being  de('|)ly  atrcctcd  l)y  bis  whole  appearance  and 
conversation,  and  absorbed  in  the  feelings  wbicb  these  pioduced,  I  could 
not  retain  much  of  the  language  wbicb  be  uttered,  tbougli  the  general 
im|)ression  of  what  he  said  is  inilelii)ly  tixid  in  my  mind.  I  icrollrcl, 
liowevcr,  his  expressions  in  spciaking  of  his  »  aily  and  dei-p  si-nse  of 
i-eligious  truth  and  accountal)ility.  '  I  cannot  rememl)er,'  he  said,  '  wlirn 
I  bad  not  this  feeling,  and  when  I  did  not  act  from  it,  or  emleavor  to. 
Ill   my  boyish   davs,  when   some   of  my   cr)mpanioiis,  who   bad  become 


•  The  "  Kxtrnct  from  n  Letter  to  the  Eilitor,"  constitutinj;  n  considcrnlile  ptirt  or 
the  biof,'r(iphical  notice  prefixed  to  PmrcHsor  Frisbic's  "  MiscclliiiiuoU)*  WrilingH,"  mid 
there  given  unonymously,  was  by  liim. 

G 


42  -MEMOIR    OF    HON,    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

infected  with  Tom  Paine's  intidelity,  broached  his  notions  in  conversa- 
tion with  me,  I  battled  it  with  them  stoutly,  not  exactly  with  the  logic 
you  would  get  from  Locke,  ])ut  with  the  logic  I  found  here  (pointing 
to  his  breast)  ;  and  here  it  has  always  been,  —  my  guide  and  support. 
Tt   is  my  su]>port  still.'" 

Harvard  College  bad  conferred  on  Judge  White,  in  1 837,  the 
honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws.  At  the  Commencement  in 
1844,  he  delivered  the  Address  before  the  Alumni.  It  abounds 
in  expressions  of  love  and  reverence  for  his  Alma  Mater,  and 
of  his  solicitude  for  her  moral  safety  and  progress.  While 
dwelling  on  the  last-mentioned  topic,  he  is  led  to  say,  "  Let 
the  next  foundation  laid  here  in  aid  of  education  be  a  Profes- 
sorship of  the,  Philosophy  of  the  Heart  and  the  Moral  LifeJ^ 
These  words  attracted  the  attention  of  his  friend,  Miss  Caro- 
line Plummer ;  and  the  college  is  understood  to  be  indebted 
to  them  for  the  foundation  of  the  Plummer  Professorship  of 
Christian  Morals. 

Two  years  afterward,  though  then  seventy,  he  consented 
to  deliver  the  eulogy  on  his  friend  John  Pickering  before  the 
American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  Here  again  he 
dilates,  some  indeed  may  think  disproportionately,  on  the 
early  life  and  studies  of  the  subject  of  the  address ;  but  it  is 
that  he  may  exhibit  him  "  as  the  model  scholar^  He  thus 
speaks  of  his  own  intimacy  with  Mr.  Pickering,  which  began, 
as  before  stated,  when  they  were  law-students  in  the  same 
office :  — 

"  "While  he  had  been  abroad,  expanding  his  views  of  men  as  well  as 
books,  I  had  been  confined  to  a  didactic  sphere  within  the  walls  of  col- 
lege. On  emerging  into  the  w^orld,  nothing  could  have  been  more  wel- 
come to  me  than  such  a  companion.  His  society  was  alike  instructive 
and  delightful :  it  brightened  the  wdiole  time  I  was  with  him,  and  made 
it  one  of  the  sunniest  spots  of  my  life.  From  that  moment,  I  was  for 
many  yeai-s  a  close  observer  of  him  in  public  and  in  private ;  at  the 
Bar,  and  among  his  friends ;  in  his  walks,  and  amid  his  studies ;  in 
the  bosom  of  his  family,  and  at  my  own  fireside :  and,  to  my  ^^ew,  his 
whole  path  of  life  was  luminous  with  truth  and  goodness,  —  never  ob- 


MEMOIR    OF    HOX.    DANIEL    APPLETOX   WHITE,  43 

scured,  no,  not  for  a  moment,  by  the  slightest  shade  of  obliquity  in  liiin. 
To  the  eye  of  reflecting  age,  truth  and  goodness  are  every  thing ;  mere 
genius  and  fame,  nothing,  —  in  the  comparison,  absolutely  nothing." 

Mr.  Pickering's  "  genius  and  fame,"  however,  are  not  for- 
gotten. Brief  notices  are  given  of  liis  numerous  and  valuable 
contributions  to  law  and  letters,  and  especially  of  what  he  did 
for  classical  literature  and  comparative  philology,  where  he 
had  few  if  any  equals,  and  no  superiors,  in  this  country. 

For  the  last  forty  years  of  Judge  White's  life,  much  of  his 
time  was  passed  among  his  books,  of  which  he  had  a  large  and 
various  collection.  He  had  been  a  book-collector  from  an 
early  period.  This  he  takes  occasion  to  regret,  at  times,  in 
words  like  the  following :  — 

"  My  enumei'ation  of  books,  closed  to-day,  has  impressed  me  afresh 
with  the  inexpediency  of  accumulating  such  a  number.  W'hU  me  the 
desire  to  collect  books  arose  from  peculiar  circumstances,  and  increased 
as  it  was  gratified.  The  cla<s  of  1802,  on  leaving  college,  presented 
me  with  one  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  books.  The  class  of  180G,  when 
I  left  as  tutor  in  1803,  did  the  same.  Habit  has  made  the  iHurhase  of 
books  a  pleasure,  and  the  distribution  of  them  a  greater  pleasure  tlian 
any  other  kind  of  donation.  Several  thousand  volumes,  I  believe,  have 
passed  through  my  hands  to  others." 

It  is  not  unlikely,  that,  in  one  respect,  he  had  a  right  to 
look  on  his  library  as  an  evil,  or  at  least  as  a  temptation.  Its 
miscellaneous  character,  in  which  it  is  hard  to  say  whether 
law,  divinity,  history,  or  classical  literature,  predominated, 
fostered  a  natural  tendency  to  general  and  desultory  reading. 
His  journal  shows,  however,  that  he  knew  how  to  speak  with 
great  affection  of  his  mute  friends:  — 

"Alone  this  evening,  Sohtinlc  i'nr  .i  lime,  imt  iiiipleasaut.  Tiidfed, 
in  tiie  midst  of  my  books,  I  li  i|.  \'uy  ilic  iiin>t  p.irt.  •m-vcr  less  ;il(»nc 
tlian  when  alone,'  I'xKtks  are  cxi-cllcnl  (•oinpany,  and  choice  and  fii- 
niibar  l)0(iks  an;  dear  friends,  and  ihcir  cdnijiany  always  sweet  and 
(h-hglittul  ;  at  the  same  time,  instrui-tive  and  useful,  —  ready  In  impart 
any  sort  of  information,  to  answer  any  inrpiiries,  solve  any  doubts  on 


44  JIK.MOll!    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

any  subject  in  the  whole  range  of  literature,  history,  and  science ;  full 
of  curious  learning,  wit,  and  pleasantry  ;  and  freely  communicating  their 
rich  stores  of  intelligence,  without  weariness  or  imi)atience,  however 
importunately,  or  even  impertinently,  inquiries  may  be  made  of  them. 
"With  such  comi)anions,  one  never  need  feel  alone,  and  may  well  feel 
justified  in  prizing  their  society  above  any  other.  Yet  few  have  more 
reason  to  bless  God  for  their  family  and  accustomed  society  than  I 
have  :  those  who  have  just  left  me  alone  will  be  most  affectionately 
welcomed  on  their  return." 

No  father  ever  bestowed  more  thought  or  care  on  the  edu- 
cation of  his  children.  As  he  was  determined  to  leave  no 
part  of  this  duty  undone,  it  is  well  that  he  entered  upon  it 
with  the  wise  precaution,  that  there  is  also  danger  in  over- 
doing. The  spontaneous  life,  in  its  time  and  place,  is  as 
sacred  as  the  reflective  and  moral  life.  Writing  to  a  lady 
respecting  his  daughters,  when  they  were  quite  young  and 
under  his  sole  care,  he  says,  "  My  little  girls  are  in  fine 
health  and  spirits,  and  appear  to  have  acquired  nothing  bad. 
My  '  plans  of  education  '  have  as  yet  scarcely  extended  beyond 
these  objects :  so  you  Avill  perceive  I  need  '  enlightening '  on 
the  subject."  Even  in  respect  to  morals  and  religion,  he  holds 
that  "  excess  of  regulation  and  discipline  is  probably  as  perni- 
cious as  the  opposite  extreme  of  indulgence.  Both  are  bad 
enough.  Our  aim  should  be,  to  pursue  a  middle  course ; 
allowing  Nature  free  scope  in  unfolding  and  maturing  all  her 
generous  feelings  and  principles,  without  indulging  the 
growth  of  any  bad  ones ;  correcting  what  is  wrong,  and 
stimulating  by  kindness  what  is  right ;  checking  vicious,  but 
cherishing  virtuous  propensities ;  preventing  bad  habits  and 
unkindly  associations,  and  promoting  the  reverse ;  giving,  in 
fact,  to  our  children  the  benefit  of  our  superior  wisdom  and 
experience,  without  subjecting  them  to  the  perverting  influ- 
ence of  our  caprice,  passions,  or  excessive  fondness."  On 
one  point,  however,  he  shows  himself  to  be  inflexibly  of  the 
old  school.     Thus,  in  another  letter  to  the  same  correspond- 


MEMOIR    OP    HON.    DAXIEL    APPLETOX   WHITE.  45 

ent,  he  writes :  "  Your  ideas  of  discipline  in  early  education 
appear  to  me  perfectly  just :  more  so,  indeed,  than  I  had  a 
right  to  expect.  So  much  heresy  on  this  subject  prevails 
among  some  of  the  best  people  in  the  higher  ranks,  that  I  did 
not  know  whether  you  had  wholly  escaped  it.  But,  if  expe- 
rience has  settled  any  thing  in  education,  it  is  the  necessity 
of  implicit  obedience.  This  once  established,  the  foundation  of 
character,  "as  you  observe,  may  be  considered  as  laid." 

Yet  this  implicit  obedience  was  not  looked  for  as  the  result 
of  physical  or  moral  constraint.  He  did  not  think  to  govern 
his  children  against  their  will,  but  through  their  will.  They 
grew  up  under  the  impression  that  what  he  required  of  them 
was  not  for  his  own  ease  or  profit,  nor  yet  for  the  order  or 
credit  of  the  family,  but  because  it  was  right  and  for  their 
good.  The  leading  qualitites  of  his  mind  and  character, 
though  not  in  other  respects  particularly  attractive  to  the 
young,  wore  of  a  nature  to  inspire  confidence  in  an  eminent 
degree  as  to  the  singleness  and  integrity  of  his  aims;  and 
this  is  what  children,  by  a  sort  of  instinct,  are  the  first  to  see 
and  appreciate.  To  his  children,  therefore,  his  authority  was 
not  so  much  an  arbitrary  will  as  an  external  conscience,  which 
they  were  to  obey  spontaneously  as  a  condition  of  freedom  and 
safety. 

Such  a  father,  when  liis  children  left  home  for  sciiuol,  was 
not  likely  to  feel  that  he  had  hired  other  persons  to  relievo 
him  of  his  parental  responsibilities.  By  frequent  correspond- 
ence, and  other  acts  of  kindness  and  attention,  lie  took  care 
that  the  best  influences  of  lujme  should  follow  them  wherever 
they  went.  His  letters  to  his  eldest  son  alone  exceed  six 
hundred.  Those  letters  are  not,  of  course,  for  the  public 
eye;  but  they  abound  in  wisdom,  in  tenderness,  in  sympathy,* 
without  falling  into  the  error,  so  common  with  anxious 
parents,  of  overdoing  the  matter  of  good  advice.  A  single 
specimen  will  show  how  natural  and  real  was  IIk^  intercourse 
between   father   and   sun;    in    short,  that   there   was   mutual 


46  MEMOIU    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

respect  as  well  as  mutual  love.     The  son  had  just  joined  his 
class  at  college. 

"  In  the  haste  of  your  departure  in  the  morning,  I  forgot  to  answer 
your  question,  '  Who  said  he  would  not  read  the  Scriptures,  for  fear  of 
spoihng  his  style  ? '  Turning  to  Blackwall's  '  Sacred  Classics,'  I  had 
found,  before  you  left,  that  it  was  Cardinal  Bembo,  a  Venetian  noble- 
man, secretary  of  Pope  Leo  X.,  and  made  cardinal  to  reward  his  ser- 
vices to  the  Holy  See,  without  much  regard  to  his  faith.  But  the 
reference  by  Blackwall  proves  only  that  Bembo  advised  a  friend  not 
to  ri'ail  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  if  he  loved  elegance  of  style.  This,  too, 
was  the  remark  of  another  as  to  what  he  said ;  not  a  quotation  from 
Bembo  himself.  Altogether,  it  is  but  one  instance  out  of  a  million  of 
the  growth  of  charges  and  errors  from  little  or  nothing,  and  their 
transmission  from  writer  to  writer,  crescentes  eundo,  where  there  is  a 
party  or  sectarian  feeling  to  be  gratified  by  it,  or  a  taste  for  the  mar- 
vellous to  he  indulged. 

"  I  have  also  been  struck  by  another  sort  of  historical  uncertainty, 
upon  looking  into  several  accounts  of  Alexandria,  in  consequence  of 
JNIr.  Buckingham's  stating,  in  the  lecture  we  heard  together,  that  its 
principal  street  was  a  thousand  feet  wide  ;  a  statement  which  appeared 
to  me  incredible.  The  '  Universal  History '  had  represented  it  to  be 
a  hundred  feet.  Gillies,  in  his  '  History  of  the  World,'  states  it  to 
be  a  little  over  a  hundred.  But  the  '  Encyclopfedia  Bi-itannica '  and 
Rees's  '  Cycloptedia,'  probably  from  Savary's  '  Letters  on  Egypt,'  make 
it  two  thousand  feet.  What  Savary's  authority  was  for  such  a  vast 
common  of  sand,  I  cannot  imagine,  any  more  than  I  can  Buckingham's 
for  his  thousand  feet,  which  I  find  nowhere  else  mentioned.  Sa- 
vary  refers  to  ancient  authorities  generally,  and  particularly  Strabo. 
If  this  author  is  accessible  to  you,  I  wish  you  would  look  over  the 
seventeenth  book,  and  see  what  he  says  of  Alexandria,  and  especially 
of  the  width  of  the  principal  streets.  Diodorus  Siculus,  as  you  will 
see  in  a  passage  from  him  in  the  '  Greek  Reader,'  states  the  width  to 
be  a  hundred  feet ;  a  better  authority,  I  should  think,  than  Strabo, 
except  when  the  latter  speaks  upon  his  own  knowledge  and  observa- 
tion. 

"  But  enough  of  that.  Mr.  Young  seemed  to  regard  Mr.  Bucking- 
ham as  somewhat  of  a  charlatan,  or,  at  least,  bent  upon  money-making 
by  his  lectures,  and  not  always  well  informed  on  subjects  where  he  is 
most  confident.     He  mentioned  a  ludicrous  instance  of  this  ignorance 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  47 

in  his  alluj^ion  to  bricks  he  had  serti  in  Egypt.  —  the  walls  of  Zoan, — 
made  '  without  straw,'  under  I'liaraoh's  cruel  order  to  that  effect ; 
whereas  the  order  was,  that  they  should  not  be  furnished  with  straw, 
but  get  it  for  themselves." 

We  have  referred  more  than  once  to  Judge  White's  diary, 
begun  in  early  life,  but  kept  for  many  years  without  much 
method  or  regularity.  From  January,  1841,  he  seems  to 
have  paid  more  attention  to  it ;  his  daily  entries  becoming  an 
important  record  of  passing  events,  as  well  as  of  his  own 
reading  and  thoughts.  This  portion  of  the  journal  opens 
thus : — 

"  New  Year's  Day  much  as  usual :  all  rejoicing  with  devout  grati- 
tude in  the  mercies  of  the  past  year  to  all  the  members  of  our  family, 
to  our  friends,  our  city,  and  indeed  the  whole  country ;  more  especially 
in  regard  to  the  propitious  political  changes  it  has  brought,  and  tlie 
brightening  prospects  for  tlic  future." 

The  "  brightening  prospects  "  here  mentioned  were  due  to 
the  recent  election  of  General  Harrison  as  President,  so  soon 
to  be  clouded  over  by  his  untimely  death.  Already  a  ques- 
tion, menacing  the  integrity  of  the  Union,  had  begun  seriously 
to  trouble  thoughtful  minds.  As  far  back  as  1837,  Judge 
White  had  written  a  letter  to  vindicate  a  neighboring  clergy- 
man against  aspersions  cast  upon  him  for  alleged  proslavery 
leanings,  in  which  lie  uses  these  words:  — 

"If  the  Inniiediate  Abolitionists  would  study />wr7/rf//  good,  instead 
of  raving  and  romancing  upon  tlieories  of  innuan  blu'ity,  tlicy  niiglil 
at  least  be  harmless  in  their  movements.  As  it  is,  there  is  great  daii- 
"er  that  thev  will  <l<>  niucli.  l>y  exeitiug  tin-  passions  and  fears  of  the 
South,  to  hasten  the  de.-.tni<li(pii  of  the  liiion:  wiiicli.  uIkimnci-  it 
takes  place,  will  be  fouiid  to  lie  the  nmst  awlnl  political  event  that  can 
happen.  I>iit  I  iiei-d  not.  perhaps,  anticipate  it.  I  pray  it  may  n.-t 
arrive  in  ev<ai  your  day  :  I  ha\<'  little  fe;ir  liial  it  will  in  mine.  It 
ought  nnt  to  be  thought  of  for  a  moment,  a-  a  i-cmedy  lor  an\  piiMic 
evils,  by  any  American  who  lays  claim  to  a  spark  of  wisdom  or 
patriotism." 


48  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

From  this  time,  it  is  instructive  to  mark  the  influence 
which  the  overbearing  and  aggressive  conduct  of  the  South 
had  on  a  mind  strongl}^  opposed,  in  the  beginning,  to  anti- 
slavery  agitation,  and  anxious  that  the  compromises  of  the 
Constitution  should  be  strictly  maintained.  One  of  the  first 
outrages  committed  by  the  slave-power,  which  had  the  effect 
to  open  his  eyes  to  its  lawless  and  desperate  character,  was 
the  treatment  which  his  friend  Mr.  Hoar  received  at  Charles- 
ton in  1844.  We  find  in  his  diary  the  substance  of  a  con- 
versation which  he  had  with  Mr.  Hoar  soon  after  his  return ; 
from  which  we  take  the  following :  — 

"  I  asked  him  if  he  had  anticipated  any  such  violent  opposition  as 
he  had  encountered  in  Chark'ston.  Pie  said,  Not  at  all.  He  supposed 
he  might  have  legal  and  technical  difficulties  thrown  in  the  way  of  any 
suit  he  might  bring  to  test  the  constitutionality  of  the  South-Carolina 
law  for  imprisoning  our  free  blacks,  but  thought  not  of  personal  abuse 
and  outrage.  He  was,  however,  identified  at  once  with  our  Abolition- 
ists, and  considered  as  coming  to  carry  out  their  views.  I  asked,  if 
thev  could  not  be  made  to  understand  that  he  came  to  settle,  or  attempt 
to  settle,  a  question  of  abstract  right,  as  respected  our  own  citizens, 
Avithout  reference  to  their  slaves.  He  replied,  that  one  might  as  well 
reason  with  the  tempests  as  with  their  excited  passions ;  that  the  people 
and  the  Legislature  inflamed  each  other  as  the  cars  passed  to  and  fro 
between  Charleston  and  the  seat  of  government.  He  became  the 
object  of  mob  fury ;  and  to  save  the  city  from  disgrace,  however  little 
they  might  i-egard  his  life,  the  better  sort  took  him  and  his  daughter  to 
the  boat." 

In  another  entry,  under  date  of  March  7,  1850,  we  see  him 
beginning  to  apprehend  the  whole  extent  of  the  evil :  — 

"  Read  a  full-length  report  of  Calhoun's  speech,  in  which  he  calls 
for  an  amendment  of  tlu;  Constitution  to  restore  to  the  South  its  equili- 
brium in  the  Government.  As  if  the  South  had  nf)t  always  had  the 
preponderance.  By  thus  requiring  an  imjiossibility  as  the  means  of 
snving  the  Union,  he  shows  his  desire  to  lose  it ;  but  he  will  iuid  him- 
self no  nearer  his  wish  by  disclosing  it  in  so  barefaced  a  manner." 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.  DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  49 

After  South  Carolina  had  voted  to  secede,  and  only  a  few- 
weeks  before  his  own  death,  he  thus  wrote  to  a  raucli-re- 
spected  friend,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Sprague  of  Albany:  — 

"  Trouble  we  may  expect,  —  perhaps  blootblied  ;  but  I  cannot  allow 
myself  to  doubt  that  a  discreet  and  firm  perseverance  on  the  part  of 
the  National  Government  in  enforcing  the  laws — just  and  constitu- 
tional laws  —  will  prove  effectual,  and  preserve  tlie  Union,  and  ulti- 
mately tlie  peace  and  continued  prosperity  of  the  whole  peoi)le,  "What 
an  astounding  fact  it  would  be  in  history  to  all  posterity,  that  the 
American  Union  and  glorious  Constitution  of  Government  —  the  result 
of  seven  years  of  brave  struggles,  and  as  many  more  of  anxious  and 
wse  deliberation ;  a  Government  under  which  the  nation  has  enjoyed 
unparalleled  prosperity  for  more  than  seventy  years,  and  the  original 
numl)er  of  States  been  increased  threefold  —  should  be  broken  up  by  a 
faction,  without  a  single  grievance  to  urge  against  the  Government,  or 
pretence  of  grievance;  but  merely  from  the  result  of  a  fair  constitu- 
tional election,  and  the  apprehension  of  evil  thex'efrom  to  the  institution 
of  slavery  I " 

In  politics,  Judge  Wliitc  began  by  being,  as  Ave  have  seen, 
a  high-toned  Federalist.  After  tlie  dissolution  of  the  old 
Federal  party,  he  became  a  Whig,  and  continued  faithful 
until  that  party  was  also  very  generally  given  up.  At  the 
time  of  his  death,  he  was  a  Republican;  having  voted  for 
Fremont  and  Lincoln  at  the  last  two  presidential  elections.* 
He  did  not  consider  that  these  nominal  changes  involved  a 
real  change  of  principles.  Whenever  the  conversation  turned 
on  the  old  issue?,  he  was  still  a  Federalist;  not  bating  one  jot 
of  his  admiration  of  Hamilton,  or  of  his  antipathy  to  Jeflbr- 
8on.  But  old  j)rinciples  were  now  ti)  be  applied  to  new 
exigencies  ;    calling,  as  he  conceived,  for  new  combinations 


•  That  he  belonged  to  what  is  called  "  the  conscrvntivc  wiiip;"  of  Ww  Republican 
party,  is  cviileiit  from  tiu;  f<)llr)wing  statemoiit  in  his  juiirnal :  "  IJell  ntid  Everett  wouM 

satisfy  inc,  were  not  their  election  utterly  hopeless."     And  again:   " called  for 

subscription  to  pay  Brown's  counsel,  &c.  Decline,  and  express  my  utter  reprol)ation 
of  the  motive  and  object  of  Brown  in  thi-  Ilar[ier's-l''erry  alFair;  tending,  sd  far  ns  we 
justify  him,  to  pliici-  n^  in  the  wnjng,  and  wc^aki'n  our  dt-feni-i-  !i;,'ainst  the  wrongs  of 
the  slave-power." 

7 


50  MKMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE. 

and  a  new  policy.  In  all  this,  however,  he  insisted,  again  and 
again,  there  was  no  inconsistency,  no  defection,  no  going  over 
to  the  enemy.  His  sensitiveness  and  jealousy  on  this  point 
are  seen  in  what  he  says  in  his  diary  of  Dr.  Channing's 
"  Memoirs  :  "  — 

"  Dolightful  reading ;  confirming  all  my  old,  deep  impressions  of 
Dr.  Channing's  nnsurpassed  excellence  of  heart  and  life  and  character. 
The  author,  perhaps,  has  shown  his  uncle's  union  with  the  Abolition 
party  in  too  prominent  a  light,  and  given  an  erroneous  impression  as 
to  his  change  of  political  doctrines,  or  forsaking  his  early  Federalism. 
This,  as  it  seems  to  me,  he  never  did ;  though,  in  the  progress  of  the 
sjjirit  of  reform,  he  appeared  to  approach  true  Democracy,  —  which 
really  was  the  spirit  of  the  founders  of  the  Federal  Constitution  and 
of  Federalism,  —  against  tlie  anti-Federalists,  who  afterwaixls  assumed 
the  name  of  Democrats,  and  with  whom  Dr.  Channing  had  no  sympa- 
thy at  any  period  of  his  life." 

In  religion,  his  mind,  after  being  once  made  up,  underwent 
as  little  change  of  any  kind  as  it  well  could.  He  never  for- 
got his  obligations  to  Priestley  for  saving  him,  when  he  first 
turned  his  attention  seriously  to  the  subject,  from  scepticism. 
Priestley's  writings  did  not  make  him  a  Materialist  or  a 
Necessitarian ;  but  they  convinced  him  of  two  things,  in 
which  he  never  afterwards  wavered :  in  the  first  place,  that 
Christianity,  rightly  understood,  is  entirely  reasonable  and 
credible  ;  and,  secondly,  that  there  is  satisfactory  evidence  of 
its  supernatural  origin  and  divine  authority.  Like  Professor 
Norton,  he  built  but  little  on  what  is  called  natural  religion; 
that  is  to  say,  on  men's  unassisted  reasonings  or  alleged 
intuitions  respecting  God  and  a  future  state.  On  these  high 
themes,  the  speculations  of  philosophers  did  not  seem  to  him 
to  be  worth  much.  They  settled  nothing.  Accordingly, 
whatever  ho  expected  or  hoped  for  in  heavenly  things  was 
"  through  Christ."  The  interpretation  of  the  message,  as  it 
has  come  down  to  us,  should  be  as  free  as  the  air;  but  he 
did  not  see  how  its  authority  could  be  questioned  without 


MEMOIR    OP   HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  51 

destroying  its   chief  value.      T\''itli    these   views,  he   wrote, 
April  9,  1848  :  — 

'•To  my  ^surprise,  Theodore  Parker  appeared  in  our  pidpit,  and 
preached  all  day.  In  the  forenoon,  from  Revelation :  '  A  ^•oice  from 
heaven,  which  said,  Come  up  hither.'  In  tlie  afternoon,  on  ])raver: 
quite  a  f^ood  discourse ;  l)etter  than  the  morning,  which  was  quite 
characteristic,  containing  some  sneering,  some  inconsistencies.  Was 
sorry  that  Mi-.  Stone  thought  it  proper  to  exchange  Avith  him ;  believ- 
ing, as  I  do,  that  lie  rejects  the  divine  authority  of  Christ :  hut  I  had 
no  doubt  that  it  was  2:)roper  for  me  to  hear  him  candidly,  without 
sitting  in  judgment  on  him  or  Mr.  Stone." 

The  language  here  used  by  Judge  White,  in  expressing 
his  discontent,  illustrates  at  once  the  strength  and  positive 
nature  of  his  convictions,  and  the  catholic  temper  in  which 
they  were  held.  After  a  careful  and  serious  study  of  the 
Bible,  not  exceeded,  perhaps,  by  that  of  any  other  layman  in 
this  country,  he  still  adhered  to  Unitarianism,  as  the  doctrine 
of  the  gospel,  as  the  true  meaning  of  God's  word.  He  knew, 
however,  that  this  was  but  one  among  several  interpretations, 
all  founded  on  the  honest  but  fallible  judgment  of  men,  and 
all,  therefore,  standing,  in  this  respect,  on  tlie  same  level. 
Hence  he  maintained,  that  a  mere  difference  of  interpreta- 
tion ought  not  to  exclude  a  man  from  the  name  and  privileges 
of  a  Christian.  But  lie  could  not  be  persuaded  to  put  the 
question  of  interpretation  and  the  question  of  authority  on 
the  same  footing.  Not  that  he  was  prepared  to  judge  those 
even  who  denied  the  authority  of  the  Christian  revelation : 
they  had  as  good  a  rigiit  to  determine  for  themselves  that 
question  as  any  other.  He  merely  thought  such  ])er8ons  a 
little  too  exacting,  when  they  (hniamlcfl,  nut  mily  to  be 
allowed  to  hold  and  propagate  their  opinions,  bul  also  that 
the  Church  should  afford  them   facilities  for  that  purpose. 

ITe  was  a  Unitarian  :  still  he  preferred  to  be  considercii,  in 
his  character,  as  a  liberal  Christian,  lb-  wdnM  ncvi^r  allow 
that  he  was  a  sectarian  in   the  coninioii  or  bad  sense  ol   (hat 


52  MEMOIR   OF   HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON   WHITE. 

term.  "  The  Bible,  and  the  Bible  only,"  was  his  creed  ;  with 
the  understanding  that  men  would  read  it  with  different  eyes. 
It  was  not  for  him  to  judge  men's  works  by  their  faith,  but 
their  faith  by  their  works.  As  for  the  fruits  of  the  Christian 
faith,  including  a  truly  liberal  and  magnanimous  spirit,  he 
could  see  them  in  other  denominations  as  well  as  in  his  own ; 
and,  wherever  he  saw  them,  he  delighted  to  acknowledge 
them.  The  most  that  he  claimed  for  Unitarianism,  on  the 
score  of  a  true  Catholicism,  was,  that  all  its  influences  were 
in  the  right  direction ;  that  in  itself  it  was  essentially  catholic. 
Of  course,  he  did  not  deny  that  a  Unitarian  could  be  a  bigot ; 
but,  if  he  were  so,  it  must  be  from  the  narrow  and  despotic 
character  of  his  own  mind:  he  would  look  in  vain  for  the 
shadow  of  a  reason  or  apology  for  it  in  the  principles  he 
professed.  It  could  not  be  said  of  him,  what  has  so  often 
been  said  of  Christians  of  other  persuasions,  as  mitigating  the 
offence  ;  namely,  that  they  were  bigots  and  exclusionists,  and 
sometimes  persecutors,  as  a  matter  of  consistency,  and  for 
conscience'  sake. 

There  is  no  topic  to  which  he  refers  more  frequently  than 
to  this.  "We  give  a  single  passage,  selected  the  rather  as  it 
incidentally  expresses  his  views  on  another  subject  concerning 
which  he  had  thought  much  :  — 

"  March  6, 1846.  — Wrote  to  Henry.  Spoke  at  some  length  toucliing 
Harvard- College  sectarianism  ;  agreeing  with  liim  that  the  term  is  not 
ajiiilieable  to  Christians  of  the  most  liberal  sentiments,  following  only 
Christ  as  Master,  and  united  by  no  settled  tenets,  but  upon  the  principle 
that  each  one  is  to  exercise  his  own  judgment  and  conscience,  without 
interference  or  restraint  from  others,  in  finding  the  truth  from  the 
Scriptures.  The  more  closely  they  adhere  to  this  foundation  principle, 
the  more  steadfastly  they  follow  it  out,  the  more  anti-sectarian  they  thus 
become,  and  the  less  subject  to  be  called  '  sectarian.'  This  they  can  be 
justly  callc(l  only  in  tlie  broad  sense  of  Christian  sect,  —  the  sect  of 
which  Paul  was,  when  it  was  '  everywhere  spoken  against.'  But  the 
Orthodox  who  complain  of  sectarianism  in  Harvard  College  find  this  a 
popular  string  to  haip  upon.     AVhat  their  object  would  be,  if  they  had 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  53 

the  power,  is  manifest  from  wliat  they  have  done  at  Andover.  That 
institution,  as  the  Eev.  Dr.  Woods  stated  in  a  late  anniversary  dis- 
course, took  its  rise  from  the  election  of  Dr.  Ware  as  IloUis  Professor 
in  1805;  Samuel  Abbot  diverting,  on  account  of  that  election,  the  large 
donation  designed  in  liis  will  for  Cambridge  to  founding  the  institution 
at  Andover.  Had  they  got  possession  of  Cambridge,  would  they  not 
have  wished  to  establish  the  same  strict  creed  there  which  they  did  at 
Andover?  Would  not  their  consciences  have  worked  alike  in  both 
places  ?  The  true  distinction  between  these  different  classes  of  pro- 
fessing Christians  is  according  to  the  spirit  and  principle  actuating 
them,  not  according  to  opinions  ado})ted  ;  that  is,  into  liberal  and 
exclusive.  The  former,  hound  to  no  particular  0|>inions,  admits  all 
professing  Christians  to  its  communion :  the  latter  excludes  all  who 
cannot  subscribe  to  their  particular  ophiinns,  —  to  the  creed,  or  fornuda 
of  faith,  devised  by  them,  or  adopted  or  inherited  by  them.  One  ilass 
is  indeed  liberal  on  principle ;  the  other  sectarian,  perhaps  on  princi- 
ple too,  doubtless  in  conscience,  —  all  the  more  alarming  for  this, 
should  they  get  the  power  over  a  literary  institution." 

He  was  now  beginning  to  feel  the  presence,  if  not  tbe 
pressure,  of  old  age.  On  the  7tli  of  June  of  the  last-men- 
tioned year,  he  thus  writes :  — 

"  My  seventieth  birthday  !  —  wlilch  excites  most  serious  reflections, 
with  most  heartfelt  thanksgiving  for  the  mercies  of  God ;  unmerited, 
indeed,  but  sure  and  great  at  this  moment.  May  my  heart  be  full  of 
gratitude,  and  my  life  (tlie  small  residue  of  it)  better  than  ever  before ! 
Mav  I  not  fortret  that  I  liave  no  i)romise  ])ut  of  'labor  aud  sorrow'  in 
the  future,  and  be  duly  thankful  and  Inimlile  under  whatever  awaits 
me  ; 

The  "labor  and  sorrow"  to  which  lie  here  refers  were 
spared  liim  to  a  remarkable  degree.  Nearly  fifteen  years  of 
life  and  health  were  still  in  reserve  for  him,  during  much 
of  wliich  he  was  as  active,  ami  during  all  of  which  he  was 
as  happy  and  useful,  as  at  any  i'ormer  period. 

His  seventh  birthday  from  this  time  is  thus  iidticed:  — 

"At  seven  o'cloi-k,  tliis  7lh  (if  .Imir,  I  .-iiii  ,-(\cnty-sevcii  !  'I'lie 
figures  almost   frighl<ii    nic ;   y<l    I   I'kI   iiol    lli.it    liny  oppress  me  by 


54  MEMOIR    OP    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE. 

tlioir  iHimbi'i-  (ir  tlie  -weight  of  yoars.  Blessed  be  the  merciful  God, 
who  has  spared  me  so  much  streugth,  aud  capacity  of  thought  aud 
eujoymeut !  How  mysterious  is  life,  is  thought,  is  being  itself!  The 
mystery  is  greater  and  greater  to  the  thoughtful  mind  as  we  approach 
the  great  change,  when,  if  ever,  it  may  be  solved.  Faith  in  God 
and  in  Christ  increases,  however,  while  the  subordinate  differences  of 
opinion  are  vanishing  into  nothing.  I  think  I  feel  a  greater  nearness 
to  God  the  older  I  grow,  and  the  nearer  I  approach  the  solemn  period 
when  I  must  appear  before  him.  Oh !  may  I  rightly  improve  this  grow- 
ing consciousness  of  his  presence,  and  be  quickened  in  preparation  to 
meet  him,  by  fulfilling  every  duty;  trusting  in  his  providence  and 
mercy,  and  seeking  to  foUoAV  Christ  in  all  things ! " 


He  had  sent  in  his  resignation  as  Judge  of  Probate  a  few- 
weeks  before ;  but  it  did  not  take  effect  until  the  following 
month.     He  had  held  the  oflSce  thirty-eight  years,  —  longer 
than  any  of  his  predecessors,  and  long  enough  to  have  most 
of  the  estates  of  the  county  pass  under  his  supervision,  and 
some  of  them  several  times.     Few  persons  are  aware  how 
much  the  peace  and  comfort  of  families,  and  the  rights  of  the 
most  unprotected  portion  of  the  community,  depend  on  a  wise 
and  humane  administration  of  the  probate-law.      Often  the 
applicants  are  in  great  anxiety  and  distress,  ignorant  alike  of 
their  just  claims,  and  of  the  means  of  securing  them;  and 
watched,  perhaps,  by  those  who  are  willing  to  take  advantage 
of  their  weakness  and  their  mistakes.     Under  such  circum- 
stances, the  personal  fitness  of  the  judge,  and  especially  his 
sympathy  for  the   weak   and   defenceless,  and   his  jealousy 
of  every  thing    that    looks   like    a    disposition    to    plot    and 
overreach,  are  quite  as  necessary  to  tlie  ends  of  justice  as 
the  law  itself.     Here  it  was,  as  well  as  in  a  thorough  know- 
ledge of  his  own  department  of  law,  that  Judge  White  stood 
among  the  foremost.     Hence  the  murmurs  raised  against  him 
at  the  outset  soon  died  away.     The  people  became  convinced 
that  the  reforms  introduced  into  his  court  were  for  the  pubhc 
good;    and  he  continued  to  preside  there  for  more  than  a 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  55 

whole  generation,  "  not  only,"  as  we  are  told  on  high  authori- 
ty, '•  to  entire  acceptance,  but  in  such  manner  as  to  attract  a 
degree  of  veneration  and  affectionate  confidence  throughout 
the  county."  The  following  are  his  own  reflections,  suggest- 
ed by  a  review  of  his  ofiicial  conduct:  — 

"  July  1, 1853.  —  This  day  closes  my  probate  career,  and  I  feel  satis- 
tied  that  I  have  done  aa'cII  in  so  orderinsr  it ;  for  thouirli  I  miaht  have 
coutimied  a  little  longer  to  do  as  well  in  the  office  as  I  have  ever  done, 
yet  I  might  fail  in  capacity,  without  being  sensible  of  it,  and  so  make  a 
more  ignoble  close.  Blessed  be  God,  who  has  enabled  me  to  continue 
so  long  in  the  enjoyment  of  health  and  strength !  In  reviewing  my 
official  course,  I  have  the  comfort  to  tliink  that  I  have  always  endea- 
vored to  do  right.  But  I  now  regret  that  I  did  not  regard,  more  than  I 
have,  the  manner  of  doing  it.  I  have  no  recollection  of  ever  thinking 
oi  manner  or  effect;  but  went  on  naturally,  as  I  felt,  witliout  thuiking  of 
putting  on  dignity,  or  commending  myself  to  ajiprobation." 

Released  from  all  official  cares,  he  could  now  give  himself 
more  freely  to  such  studies  and  thoughts  as  become  and 
brighten  the  last  days  of  a  good  man.  We  learn  from  inci- 
dental notices  in  his  diary,  that  even  when,  through  illness, 
unable  to  attend  to  any  thing  else,  he  seldom  allowed  a  day  to 
pass  without  reading  his  chapter  or  two  in  the  Greek  New 
Testament.  There  is  also  among  his  papers  a  new  translation 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  written  out  by  him  with  great 
care.  The  manuscript  is  of  uncertain  date.  It  evidently 
belongs  to  his  advanced  life  ;  and  shows,  if  nothing  more,  how 
earnest  and  faithful  lie  was  in  searching  the  Scriptures.  Nor 
did  ho  shut  himself  up  in  his  library.  Ilis  friends  were  never 
more  welcome,  never  more  in  his  mind  and  heart.  Tie  also 
kept  up  his  interest  in  public  objects  and  events,  and  in  all 
new  literary  and  scientific  questions;  and,  being  a  member 
of  the  principal  literary  and  pliilanthropic  societies  in  Salem 
and  Boston,  he  still  continued  to  attend  their  meetings,  often 
taking  an  active  f)ait.  Ticast  of  all  did  lie  allow  his  zeal  in 
behalf  of  the  college  to  be  chilled   by  age.     lb-  was  one  of 


66  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE. 

the  overseers  from  1842,  until  displaced  by  the  new  organiza- 
tion of  the  Board  in  1853 ;  and  afterwards  served  on  one 
of  the  most  important  of  the  visiting  committees  until  his 
death.  Indeed,  it  was  by  exposure  and  fatigue,  occasioned  b}^ 
a  too  faithful  discharge  of  his  duty  in  the  last-mentioned 
capacity,  that  his  death  is  supposed  to  have  been  hastened. 

In  giving  an  account  of  one  of  his  visits  to  the  university, 
he  says,  "  What  pleased  me  at  the  examination  public  dinner 
yesterday  was  the  total  absence  of  all  beverage  but  cold 
water;  it  being  the  first  time  I  ever  witnessed  such  a  specta- 
cle on  any  occasion  of  the  kind  at  Cambridge."  At  another 
time :  "  Yesterday,  at  the  exhibition-dinner,  I  sat  next  to  Mr. 
Abbott  Lawrence.  He  told  me,  that,  when  minister  at  Lon- 
don, he  was  near  neighbor  to  Lord  Wellington,  who  was  very 
kind  to  him.  His  lordship  lived  very  simply ;  had  long  since 
given  up  wine,  and  never  used  tobacco  in  any  of  its  forms." 

The  diary  abounds  in  statements  and  anecdotes  to  the  same 
effect,  showing  how  entirely  he  sympathized  with  some  of 
the  reformatory  movements  of  the  day ;  and  this  sympathy 
grew  stronger  as  he  advanced  in  years.  His  temperament 
Avas  not  that  of  an  agitator ;  neither  would  his  just  and  fair 
mind  allow  him  to  impose  his  conscience  upon  others.  Still, 
so  far  as  his  own  opinion  and  practice  went,  he  became  more 
and  more  decided  that  toted  abstinence  was  the  true  doctrine 
in  respect  to  tobacco  and  intoxicating  drinks.  He  could  not 
make  the  former  to  be  as  dangerous,  in  a  moral  point  of 
view,  as  the  latter ;  but,  under  other  aspects,  it  was  even 
more  inexcusable  and  offensive,  and  therefore  incurred,  per- 
haps, his  sharpest  rebukes.  In  one  instance,  he  speaks  of 
writing  a  letter,  filling  two  sheets,  in  order  to  encourage  and 
animate  some  new  converts.  At  another  time,  half  in  despair, 
he  thus  bemoans  the  obstacles  :  — 

"  But  Avliat  can  a  feeble  individual  do  to  suppress  an  evil  so  deep- 
rooted,   so   wide-spread,  so  fascinating  among  all  classes  of  society, 


MEMOIR    OF   HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  57 

clergy  as  well  as  laity,  who  will  turn  with  contempt  and  ridicule  from 
any  single-handed  opposition,  even  of  the  highest  station ;  as  was  the 
case  when  King  James  hlew  his  '  Counterblast '  ?  Such  an  evil  requires 
a  union  of  the  most  influential  in  society,  and  the  tixlents  of  the  most 
gifted  for  argument,  satire,  ridicule,  and  sarcasm,  to  be  exerted,  without 
cessation  and  without  mercy,  for  successive  generations." 

With  so  strong  a  disposition  to  be  useful  while  living,  it 
was  natural  that  he  should  wish  to  continue  to  be  so  after 
death,  —  an  event  which  could  not  be  far  off.  He  had  not 
large  possessions  to  bestow ;  but  he  could  do  something  to 
cause  himself  to  be  remembered  in  the  places  where  he  had 
lived,  as  a  friend  to  popular  instruction,  and  as  a  believer  in 
the  power  of  Christian  principles  and  in  the  worth  of  Chris- 
tian character. 

His  father's  farm  in  Methuen,  on  which  he  was  brought  up, 
now  makes,  as  before  intimated,  a  central  part  of  the  manu- 
facturing city  of  Lawrence.  Of  this  farm,  a  reserved  lot  of 
about  six  acres  was  still  held  by  him ;  subject,  however,  to  the 
restriction,  that  it  could  not  be  built  upon  without  the  consent 
of  the  Essex  Company,  —  the  projectors  of  the  new  city.  In 
this  state  of  things,  he  submitted  to  the  company  a  proposal, 
that  this  restriction  should  be  taken  off,  and  the  land  be  con- 
veyed to  trustees,  who  should  dispose  of  the  same,  and  use 
the  proceeds  of  the  sales  as  a  fund  for  the  support  of  public 
lectures  and  a  public  library.  The  proposal  was  readily 
acceded  to.  In  the  deed  of  gift,  bearing  date  Aug.  23,  1852, 
he  makes  the  consideration  to  be,  "  his  having  at  heart  the 
welfare  of  his  native  place,  and  earnestly  desiring  to  do  some- 
thing to  promote  the  improvement  and  prosperity  of  its  now 
numerous  population."  He  also  instructs  the  trustees  "  to  have 
special  reference  to  the  wants'  of  the  young  and  of  the  in- 
dustrial classes ; "  and  "  constantly  to  bear  in  mind,  thai  the 
great  object  intended  to  be  promoted  and  accomplished  is 
the  education  and  training-up  of  \\\r.  young  in  habits  of  indus- 
try, morality,  and  piety,  and  in  the  exercise  of  true  Christian 

8 


58  MEMOIR    OP    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

prniciples,  botli  in  tliought  and  action."  The  trustees  have 
already  realized,  from  sales  and  accumulations,  about  ten 
thousand  dollars,  Avith  full  one-half  the  land  still  unsold. 

In  the  same  spirit,  and  Avitli  the  same  general  purpose, 
Judge  White  took  an  active  part  in  founding  and  building  up 
the  Essex  Institute  in  Salem.  The  institute  was  formed  in 
1848  by  the  union  of  the  Essex  Historical  and  the  Essex- 
County  Natural-History  Societies ;  the  former  organized  in 
1821,  the  latter  in  1833.  He  had  been  a  liberal  patron  of  the 
old  societies.  Under  the  new  organization,  he  Avas  elected 
the  first  president,  and  unanimously  re-elected  to  this  office 
eA^ery  year  until  his  death.  What  did  more  than  any  thing 
else  to  interest  him  in  the  institute  was  its  promise  to  be 
largely  instrumental  in  diffusing  useful  knowledge  among  the 
people  by  means  of  lectures,  discussions,  scientific  excursions, 
and  a  public  library,  —  his  favorite  mode  of  doing  good.  To 
its  library  he  became  a  munificent  benefactor,  transferring 
to  its  sheh^es  the  chief  part  of  his  OAvn  collection ;  his  dona- 
tions, in  his  lifetime  and  by  Avill,  amounting  to  over  eight 
thousand  volumes,  and  about  ten  thousand  pamphlets. 

He  did  not  lay  down  his  pen  until  the  last ;  neither  do  his 
writings,  even  after  he  was  eighty,  betray  the  slightest  falling- 
off  in  clearness  and  vigor.  A  letter  from  him,  in  the  Boston 
Daily  Advertiser,  May  20,  1858,  Avritten  Avhen  he  Avas  nearly 
eighty-tAvo,  reminds  us  of  his  best  manner  in  his  best  days. 
The  same  remark  applies  to  "  A  Brief  Memoir  of  the  Plummer 
Famil}^,"  published  the  same  year  ;  and  also  to  his  ''  NeAv-Eng- 
land  Congregationalism  in  its  Origin  and  Purity,"  which  came 
from  the  press  during  his  last  sickness,  and  only  a  fcAv  days 
before  he  died. 

Of  this  last  work,  the  most  considerable  that  he  gave  to  the 
public,  it  Avill  be  proper  to  say  a  few  words.  It  contains,  in 
the  first  place,  a  full  statement  of  the  documentary  evidence 
respecting  the  oldest  extant  covenant  of  the  First  Church  in 
Salem ;  and,  secondly,  a  copy  of  the  records  of  this  church 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETOX   WHITE.  59 

down  to  1736,  so  far  as  they  are  of  public  interest  or  will 
help  to  illustrate  its  original  constitution.  Then  follow  three 
discussions  :  the  first  being  a  republication,  with  slight  abridg- 
ments, of  a  letter  already  referred  to  as  making  part  of  the 
"  Correspondence  between  the  First  Church  and  the  Tabernacle 
Church  in  Salem,  in  which  the  Duties  of  Churches  are  dis- 
cussed, and  the  Rights  of  Conscience  vindicated  ;  "  the  second 
contains  the  substance  of  a  controversy  between  Judge  White 
and  the  Rev.  Dr.  S.  M.  Worcester,  which  originally  appeared 
in  the  Salem  Gazette  of  1854,  having  been  suggested  by  Dr. 
Worcester's  repeated  averment,  "  that  Avhat  has  generally 
b^en  printed  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  as  the  First  Cove- 
nant of  the  First  Church,  was  not  that  covenant  ;^^  and  the 
third,  Judge  White's  re-assertion  of  the  claims  of  the  cove- 
nant renewed  in  1636  to  be  considered  "the  Confession  of 
Faith  and  Covenant  "  adopted  at  the  foundation  of  the  church, 
with  strictures  on  certain  statements  in  Mr.  Felt's  "  Ecclesi- 
astical History  of  New  England,"  and  in  the  new  edition  of 
Morton's  "  Memorial,"  touching  this  subject.  The  appendix 
contains  a  reprint  of  notices  of  the  First  Church  in  Salem 
and  its  ministers,  from  1629  to  1853,  prepared  by  Judge  White 
some  years  before,  and  first  published  as  an  appendix  to  the 
sermon  preached  at  the  ordination  of  its  present  pastor,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Briggs. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once,  that  the  volume  just  described  is,  for 
the  most  part,  a  compilation  :  still  it  was  a  work  of  much  care 
and  labor.  On  some  accounts,  we  cannot  help  regretting  that 
the  last  months  of  Judge  White's  life  should  have  been  occu- 
pied, and  perhaps  wearied,  by  it.  His  motive,  however,  was 
most  honorable,  and  felt  by  him  to  be  imperative ;  namely,  to 
vindicate  what  he  believed  to  bo  the  trutii  of  history,  and  one 
of  the  noblest  distinctions  of  the  founders  of  his  own  church 
and  of  New-England  Congregationalism.  Whatever  may  be 
thought  of  somn  of  the  side-issues,  we  consider  the  main 
position  abunduuLly  cstablisliod.     In  our  opinion,  he  has  accu- 


GO  MEMOll't    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE. 

mulated  proof  upon  proof,  that  what  has  passed  for  more  than 
two  centuries  as  the  First  Covenant  of  the  First  Church  in 
Salem  is  reall}^  that  covenant ;  that  it  is  the  "  instrument"  some- 
times called  "  a  covenant/'  sometimes  "  a  confession  of  faith," 
and  sometimes  "a  confession  of  faith  and  covenant,"  which  Hig- 
ginson  drew  up  "  in  Scripture  language  "  for  the  constitution 
of  the  church  "  at  their  first  beginning,"  and  the  whole  of  it.  From 
this  it  follows,  that  the  New-England  Congregational  churches, 
"  in  their  origin  and  purity,"  were  not  founded  on  a  test  creed. 
In  saying  this,  we  do  not  mean  that  our  Puritan  ancestors 
were  not  Calvinists,  or  that  they  did  not  insist  on  Calvinism, 
but  only  that  they  forbore  to  organize  it  into  the  very  consti- 
tution of  their  churches.  They  were  probably  hindered  from 
taking  such  a  step  by  their  earnest  and  consistent  Protestant- 
ism, and  by  their  belief — a  belief  in  which  they  had  been 
instructed  and  confirmed  by  Robinson  —  in  "  the  progress  of 
Protestantism."  That  they  soon  relapsed  into  the  ways  of 
other  churches,  is  but  too  well  known ;  but  this  only  affords 
another  illustration,  if  another  was  wanted,  to  show  how  apt 
all  sects  are  to  disappoint  their  early  promise,  and  fall  from 
consistency.  We  must  not  withhold  Judge  White's  own  ac- 
count of  the  spirit  with  which  he  engaged  in  this  polemic,  as 
given  in  a  letter  to  his  eldest  son :  — 

"  I  expect  no  reward  for  my  labor,  and  few  thanks ;  but  I  shall  feel 
better  satisfied  with  myself  if  I  can  accomplish  the  drudgery  before  I 
am  called  away  from  it.  True  religious  freedom  has  been  dear  to  my 
imagination  from  earliest  recollection  of  my  father's  talk  about  it.  I 
think  tills  freedom  of  far  higher  importance  than  any  doctrinal  opinion. 
What  I  wish  is,  that  all  now  should  receive  their  religion  as  freely  and 
directly  from  Chi-ist  and  his  apostles,  without  human  interposition,  as 
did  the  first  believers." 

The  frequent  passing-away  of  the  few  that  remained  of  his 
classmates  and  contemporaries  had  made  him  familiar  with 
the  thought  of  death.  The  loss  of  his  daughter  Mary,  Mrs. 
Foote, — who  died  Dec.   24,  1857,  in  the  midst  of  Hfe  and 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    ArPLETON   WHITE.  61 

usefulness,  —  was  also  a  great  affliction.  She  alone,  of  all  bis 
children,  continued  to  reside  in  Salem ;  and,  bj  her  almost 
daily  presence,  was  still  the  light  of  his  bouse.  But,  in  his 
deepest  sorrow,  he  had  the  hope  ''  which  entereth  into  that 
within  the  veil."  To  him,  the  dead  were  not  dead.  "  It 
is  with  me,"  he  writes  to  one  of  the  family,  "  as  you  say  it  is 
with  you,  in  regard  to  Mary.  I  see  her  almost  constantly,  and 
always  in  some  pleasant  attitude  or  conversation,  just  as  she 
appeared  in  her  happiest  moments,  —  when  entering  the  room 
with  her  cheering  smile,  or  seated  on  the  sofa  gladdening 
her  mother,  or  at  the  table  delighting  us  all.  Most  of  all 
comes  to  me  the  look  with  which  she  turned  to  me  on  Thanks- 
giving Day  (the  last  time  I  sat  at  table  with  her),  and  said 
that  we  had  passed  every  Thanksgiving  together,  but  one, 
since  her  earliest  recollection.  I  see  her,  too,  by  my  sick  bed- 
side,—  a  comforting  angel,  as  she  was.  She  will  always  be 
be  such,  in  spirit,  to  me ;  yet  I  sadly  feel  the  loss  of  her  pre- 
sence in  the  body.  May  we  all  feel  devoutly  thankful  for  the 
rich  blessing  she  has  been  to  us  for  so  many  years  ! " 

At  length,  his  own  time  had  come.  On  the  2d  of  Janu- 
ary, 18G1,  he  attended  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Committee  of 
Examination  for  the  Divinity  School  at  Cambridge.  He  took 
all  his  usual  interest  in  the  occasion :  he  also  made  several 
visits,  walking  from  place  to  place,  and  then  returned  home; 
"  feeling,"  to  use  his  own  expression,  "  that,  of  all  comforts, 
rest  was  the  sweetest."  He  had  overtasked  his  remaining 
strength,  and  never  recovered  from  the  fatigue.  For  several 
weeks,  he  was  still  able  to  read  and  write,  and  go  out  occa- 
sionally. He  was,  however,  among  the  first  to  see  that  his  end 
was  near.  The  prospect  had  no  efTect  upon  hiui,  except  to 
make  his  manner  more  gentle  and  tender  and  cheerful.  All 
the  arrangements  necessary  to  the  final  disposition  of  his 
worldly  aff*airs  were  attended  to  without  hurry  and  without 
delay.  It  was  after  ho  had  relieved  his  niiud,  for  llic  most 
[tart,  of  such  cares,  about  a  fortniglit  before  his  death,  that 


62  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE. 

some  one  said  to  liim,  "  IIow  happy  you  look  in  your  easy 
cliair  ! "  —  "Well,"  lie  replied,  "I  am  happy:  I  feel  perfectly 
reconciled  to  the  ways  of  Providence."  A  few  days  after 
wards,  he  said  to  his  wife,  "  I  have  felt  for  some  years  past  a 
more  intimate  communication  with  the  spirit  of  God ;  a  feel- 
ing of  the  Divine  Presence,  which  seemed  to  be  a  shield,  a 
security.  I  have  always  shrunk  from  speaking  of  my  deepest 
feelings :  none  know  of  the  intensity  of  my  affections  for  the 
living  and  the  dead."  On  Monday,  March  25,  his  daughter 
read  to  him  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  Matthew,  containing 
the  parable  of  the  lord  who  forgave  his  servant  the  debt.  He 
was,  as  usual,  much  moved  in  listening  to  it.  His  daughter 
said,  "  This  was  always  a  favorite  portion  of  Scripture  with 
you,  as  I  remember ; "  adding,  after  a  pause,  "  And  this  is  the 
spirit  which  you  have  always  manifested  all  your  life."  He 
shook  his  head,  and,  gathering  up  his  strength,  spoke  with  un- 
usual distinctness  and  fervor,  as  follows  :  "  No  man  ever  in  the 
hour  of  death  relied  less  upon  any  good  acts  performed  than 
I  do  at  this  moment,  and  have  done  for  many  years.  My  re- 
liance is  upon  the  mercy  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  my  own 
repentance  for  sin,  which  I  know  I  have  felt  for  years ;  and 
therefore  I  have  perfect  trust  and  peace." 

The  death-bed  of  an  intelligent,  thoughtful,  and  sincere 
Christian  —  neitlier  afraid  to  consider  his  situation,  nor  too 
much  agitated  by  it  —  is  always  instructive  and  sublime. 
Such  was  that  of  the  subject  of  this  Memoir.  He  was  in  his 
usual  dress,  and  able  to  see  other  friends  besides  the  family, 
up  to  the  last  day  of  his  life  ;  and,  indeed,  never  seemed  more 
happy  in  seeing  them.  Even  on  the  last  day  (Saturday,  March 
30),  he  wished  to  rise  and  dress  as  before ;  and  would  have 
attempted  it,  but  for  the  advice  of  the  physician  against  it ;  to 
which  he  yielded,  with  the  same  gentle  submission  he  had 
manifested  throughout  his  illness.  Early  in  the  morning,  he 
had  been  more  than  usually  aifected  by  the  family  devotions 
in  the   sick-chamber.     Some  time  afterwards,  he   dictated  a 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  63 

message  to  his  son  Henry,  absent  in  the  West.  Being  asked 
when  it  should  be  sent,  he  answered,  "  When  all  is  over." 
As  a  grateful  breath  of  air  reached  him,  he  observed,  "  Now 
there  is  nothing  more  but  to  catch  the  breezes  as  they  pass." 
"  To  be  wafted  on,"  some  one  said.  "  Yes,"  he  replied. 
About  noon,  his  son  said  to  him,  "  Father,  here  we  are  all 
round  you :  we  shall  go  up  with  you  to  this  side  of  the  river ; 
and  there  are  other  friends  waiting  to  receive  you  on  the 
other  side."  He  shook  his  head.  "  We  know  nothing  about 
that:  we  know  of  the  mercy  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ.  We  are 
assured  of  a  spiritual  creation ;  but  in  what  it  consists,  we  are 
not  told."  Soon  after,  his  daughter  asked,  "  Father,  do  you 
see  me  ?  "  He  started  with  surprise  at  the  question,  and  re- 
plied^ "  See  you  ?  —  of  course  I  do;  but  it  is  quite  another 
question  whether  I  am  to  see  you  in  another  world  ; "  and 
then  added,  with  fervor,  "All  will  be  right;  all  will  be  right." 
So  careful  was  he,  in  his  beloved  pastor's  words,  "  to  go  down 
to  the  absolute  grounds  of  trust." 

At  one  o'clock,  a  change  came  over  him,  affecting  his  ut- 
terance, which  he  did  not  understand.  Dr.  Mack,  who  was 
in  attendance,  told  him  it  was  the  effect  of  a  slight  paralysis ; 
and  added,  "You  will  soon  be  resting,  sir."  —  "There  is  but 
one  way,"  he  replied.  At  a  quarter-past  one,  Mr.  Foote,  his 
son-in-law,  came  in,  and  informed  him  that  his  friend  Judge 
Shaw  had  died  that  morning.  Startled  by  the  announcement, 
he  looked  up  inquiringly,  and  said,  "  Chief-Justice  Shaw  ?  " 
On  being  told  that  it  was,  all  his  calmness  returned,  as  he  said, 
"It  is  a  good  time."  A  grand-daughter,  who  was  present,  re- 
peated ^fr.  Norton's  hymn,  beginning,  "  My  God,  I  thank 
thee."  W'lien  she  had  ended,  he  spoke  again,  though  witli 
some  difliculty :  "That  hymn  has  been  on  my  tongue  innume- 
rable times  ;  "  and  then  himself  repeated  the  second  stanza, — 

"Thy  mercy  bids  all  nature  Ijloom; 
The  8UII  shiiieH  bright,  and  man  is  gny: 
Thine  c'liiiii  mercy  s|)rcads  tiie  gloom 
Tiiat  darkeim  o'er  his  little  day;"  — 


64  MEMOIR   OF   HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON   WHITE. 

going  back,  and  repeating  a  second  time,  with  emphasis, 
"  Thine  equal  mercy ^  These  were  his  last  words,  except  to 
ask  for  water,  which  he  drank  from  a  glass,  holding  it  in  his 
own  hand ;  and  soon  afterwards  quietly  passed  away,  twenty- 
three  minutes  before  two  o'clock.  Nothing  could  exceed  the 
perfect  serenity  of  his  mind  to  the  last.  A  tranquil  smile 
remained  on  his  countenance  several  hours  after  the  spirit 
had  returned  to  God  who  gave  it. 

The  following  letter  of  condolence,  received  a  few  days 
after  the  funeral,  was  very  grateful  to  the  family,  and  will  be 
read  with  profound  respect  by  all :  — 

"Mis.  R.  H.  White. 

"  Dear  Madam,  —  Permit  me  to  trespass  thus  early  on  your  afflic- 
tions :  I  cannot  refrain  from  yielding  to  the  impulses  of  my  lieart. 
Your  late  husband,  as  you  weU  know,  was  among  the  earliest,  dearest, 
most  truly  valued  and  beloved,  of  all  my  friends.  Our  acquaintance 
commenced  late  in  the  last  century,  and  our  regard  for  each  other  was 
unabated  and  strengthened  and  deepened  to  the  hour  of  his  death. 
The  consciousness  of  his  friendship,  of  its  truth,  of  its  warmth,  of  its 
unceasing  constancy,  has  been  one  of  the  choicest  gratifications  of  my 
life  ;  and  the  memory  of  them  will  be  a  precious  support  and  consola- 
tion during  the  few  years  I  may  be  permitted  to  survive  him.  It  is  not 
for  me  to  attempt  to  enlarge  upon  his  virtues.  The  circle  in  which  he 
was  beloved  and  honored  embraced  all  who  had  the  privilege  of  being 
acquainted  with  him ;  for  Iris  heart  was  as  capacious  as  it  was  all-attrac- 
tive and  pure.  The  public  which  he  faithfully  served,  the  college 
which  lie  honored  and  loved,  the  multitude  of  his  friends  in  almost 
every  class  of  life,  will  not  permit  his  remembrance  to  pass  away 
without  tributes  to  his  worth  and  his  virtues,  as  full  and  truthful  as  they 
will  be  well  deserved. 

"  My  grief  is,  in  a  feeble  and  humble  degree,  like  your  own.  He 
was  not,  indeed,  the  companion  of  my  life ;  but  for  sixty  years  he  has 
been  an  inmate  in  my  heart.  I  would  willingly  shed  tears ;  but  why, 
and  for  what  ?  A  well-spent,  useful,  and  universally  honored  hfe  has 
closed.  It  has  descended  like  an  autumn  sun,  the  brightness  of  his 
meridian  hour  undiminished ;  still  radiant  in  its  descent  on  the  horizon, 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE,  65 

—  glowing  with  hope  in  respect  to  the  world  into  which  he  was  enter- 
incf ;  and  leavinji  no  just  cause  of  regret,  but  rather  a  melancholy,  soul- 
supporting  joy  in  the  bosom  of  friends  in  the  world  from  wliich  he  was 
departing.     AYliat  can  we  desire  more  ?  what  better  ? 

"  Your  husband  had  that  faith  Avhich  '  is  the  substance  of  things 
hoped  for,  and  the  eyidence  of  things  not  seen ; '  which  is  true  in  philo- 
sophy as  well  as  in  religion.  Such  faith  is  the  substantial  support  of 
the  mind  in  that  hour  which  all  of  us  are  doomed  to  meet.  Happy 
he,  who,  like  your  husband,  can  depart  calm,  content,  and  resigned, 
haying  nothing  to  fear,  and  eyery  thing  to  hope  !  He  had  been  pennit- 
ted  a  length  of  existence  sufficient  for  all  the  purposes  of  life.  He  had 
acted  his  part  well,  foithfully,  and,  to  human  sense,  acceptably.  He 
died  with  the  consciousness  of  it ;  and  tliis  supported  him  in  the  moment 
the  soul  departed.  Who  can  regret  such  a  separation,  or  wish  its 
former  union  renewed  ?  He  has  gone  to  join  the  company  of  the 
good,  the  yirtuous,  and  the  wise,  who  were  once  his  companions  in 
life ;  and,  I  trust  and  belieye,  of  many  whom  he  had  only  known  by 
report,  who  liyed  and  died,  like  him,  in  the  enjoyment  and  conscious- 
ness of  useful,  happy,  and  honored  life,  though  they  were  not  liis  con- 
temporaries. This  is  a  faith  all  ought  to  cultiyate :  it  is  ever  and 
all  supporting,  even  if  (which  Heaven  forbid !)  it  should  prove  illusive. 

''  Pardon,  madam,  this  trespass  upon  your  time  and  your  thoughts; 
but  I  have  given  my  heart  to  my  pen,  ami  will  not  witlihold  that  to 
which  it  gives  utterance. 

"  With  truest  respect,  I  am  your  friend  and  servant, 

"JOSIAII    QuiXCT. 
"Boston,  6tli  April,  1861." 

Juilge  White  was  born  on  the  very  day  of  the  motion  of 
Richard  Henry  Lee,  in  the  American  Congress,  to  declare  the 
United  Colonies  independent;  and  died  just  before  the  attack 
on  Fort  Sumpter.  His  life  may  therefore  be  said  to  have 
covered  the  whole  of  our  proper  unchallenged  national  exist- 
ence. His  principles  and  habits  were  also,  in  a  remarkable 
degree,  the  product  of  our  institutions,  and  of  our  institutions 
in  their  best  days.  In  his  tastes  and  manners  and  acquisi- 
tions, he  was  a  genuine  New-England  man:  there  was  nothing 
foreign  or  exotic  about  him.  And  this  was  not  all.  From 
childhood,  he  liad  entertained  a  high,  perha})s  even  an  extra- 

9 


6Q  MEMOIR   OF    HON.    DANIEL   APPLETON   WHITE. 

vagant,  conception  of  the  character  of  the  first  settlers  of 
Massachusetts :  he  had  idealized  this  character,  and  made  it, 
thus  idealized,  his  model.  Even  in  religion,  he  always  be- 
lieved himself  the  heir  of  their  principles,  if  not  of  their 
opinions ;  of  their  method,  if  not  of  its  results.  Like  them, 
a  Protestant  among  Protestants,  continually  appealing  from 
"  traditions  "  to  "  the  law  and  the  testimony,"  he  claimed  the 
right  to  be  numbered,  not  only  among  their  warmest  admirers, 
but  also  among  their  most  faithful  and  consistent  followers. 
Whether  right  or  not,  he  felt  the  utmost  confidence  that  he 
stood  where  they  would  have  stood,  if  living  now.  Inter- 
nally and  externally,  his  character  was  of  the  Puritan  type ; 
so  much  so,  that  to  many  of  the  present  generation,  who  had 
only  known  him  as  an  old  man,  he  might  almost  seem  like  one 
of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  living  down  into  our  times,  —  in  man- 
ner and  expression,  softened  and  modified ;  in  principle  and 
substance,  the  same. 

The  Puritan  cast  of  his  mind  was  seen  even  in  its  defects. 
His  nature  was  neither  artistic  nor  imaginative.  He  made 
no  pretensions  to  brilliant  or  fascinating  qualities,  either  as 
a  writer  or  speaker.  There  was  also  an  apparent  coldness 
and  constraint  in  his  outward  manner,  as  it  struck  the 
common  observer,  which  did  not  invite  familiarity ;  and  his 
way  of  maintaining  what  he  believed  to  be  true  or  right, 
however  unpopular,  was  too  persistent  and  too  incisive  for  a 
so-called  "man  of  the  people."  He  could  not  have  been 
a  demagogue  if  he  had  tried.  Still,  had  he  continued  in 
public  life,  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt,  as  before  stated, 
that  he  would  have  gained  high  place  and  exerted  large  influ- 
ence. If  incapable  of  the  showy  and  facile  arts  of  the  mere 
politician,  he  had  nevertheless,  in  a  remarkable  degree,  those 
qualities  of  head  and  heart  which  command  public  confidence. 
Everybody  knew  where  he  was  to  be  found.  Everybody 
knew  that  he  could  not  be  coaxed  and  wheedled  out  of  his 
principles ;  that  he  could  neither  be  intimidated  nor  bought ; 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  67 

that  he  had  no  crotchets  by  which  great  public  interests 
would  be  supplanted ;  and  still  more,  that,  in  a  sound  under- 
standing and  an  unspotted  life,  he  gave  the  best  possible 
guaranty  that  any  trusts,  however  sacred,  would  be  safe  in 
his  hands. 

But,  after  all,  the  distinguishing  trait  of  Judge  White's 
character  was  what  would  hardly  have  been  expected  from 
his  habitual  caution  and  gravity,  and  the  strongly  ethical 
bias  of  his  theology.  We  refer  to  the  abounding  affection- 
ateness  of  his  nature.  His  heart  was  singularly  impressible, 
and  predisposed  him  to  look  on  the  favorable  side  of  men  and 
things.  This  appears  in  his  fondness  for  society  when  a 
young  man,  —  a  fondness  almost  amounting  to  a  passion.  One 
of  the  most  beloved  and  honored  of  his  classmates  writes,  that 
he  was  "  the  most  genial  of  them  all."  We  should  have 
inferred  as  much  from  the  manner  in  which  he  frequently 
speaks  of  college-clubs  •,  ascribing  to  them  an  interest  and 
importance  which  must  surprise  many  who  know  what  they 
were  and  are.  It  appears  more  clearly  still  in  the  multitude 
of  his  friendships,  seldom  intermitted  except  by  death ;  in  his 
family  affections,  embracing  his  remotest  ancestors  and  kin- 
dred ;  and  even  in  his  attachments  to  particular  communities 
and  particular  spots.  His  loyalty  is  also  to  be  explained  in 
the  same  way,  —  a  loyalty  which  made  him  as  sensitive  and 
jealous  for  the  national  honor  as  for  his  own.  With  him,  love 
of  country  was  not  a  figure  of  speech  :  it  was  a  real  love,  like 
the  love  for  a  common  mother ;  so  much  so,  that  when  told 
of  the  great  Rebellion,  the  beginnings  of  which  darkened  his 
last  days,  what  affected  him  most  was  the  strangeness,  the 
cruelty,  the  unnaturalness  of  the  crime.*     Even  his  religion. 


•  Had  Judge  White  lived  to  witness  the  progress  of  the  RebelHon,  there  is  notliing 
which  would  lirivc  given  him  so  much  hciirtfelt  satisfaction  ns  tlie  loyal  and  bravo 
conduct  of  his  grandchildren.  Four  of  them,  sons  of  William  Dwight,  Esq.,  were 
among  the  earliest  to  enter  the  army;  and  have  gained  distinction  for  gallant  service. 


68  Mf^MOlU    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLP]TON    WHITE. 

probably  to  a  degree  beyond  what  he  himself  suspected,  was 
the  cry  of  his  heart.  He  was  educated  among  Calvinists 
of  the  straitest  sect,  who  were  not  likely  to  hold  human 
affections  in  high  regard ;  neither  did  he  gain  much,  in  this 
respect,  by  going  over  from  Calvin  to  Priestley.  All  that  his 
theology  taught  him  was  '■'  repentance  and  pardon :  "  his  own 
heart  unconsciously  made  up  the  rest.  He  talked  of  duty  ; 
his  life  was  love. 

What  he  was  in  his  own  house,  and  to  those  who  witnessed 
his  daily  walk,  we  shall  leave  to  be  told  by  one  who  has  a 
right  to  speak  on  this  subject. 

"Keene,  N.H.,  July  23,  1862. 

"  My  dear  Sir,  —  You  have  encouraged  me  to  feel  that  a  few 
hints  of  my  own  reminiscences  and  impressions  regarding  my  father 
might  not  be  unacceptable  to  you  in  connection  with  the  Memoir  of  his 
life  which  you  are  now  preparing. 

"  How  well  I  recall  an  incident  occurring  when  I  could  not  have 
been  more  than  six  years  old  !  —  an  incident  which  was  fruitful,  in  later 
years,  of  more  suggestions  than  many  a  long  talk  could  have  been.  It 
was  near  evening  as  my  father  drove  into  the  yard  at  home,  after  an 
absence  of  several  days.  I  sprang  to  the  door,  exclaiming,  '  What 
have  you  brought,  father  ?  what  have  you  brought  for  me  ? '  —  'I  have 
brought  myself,'  he  said,  as  he  threw  open  his  arms  to  hold  me. 

"  While  careful  of  the  respect  due  to  his  authority,  I  cannot  im- 
agine, at  the  same  time,  a  parent  more  ready  to  spend  and  be  spent  for 
his  children.  Even  to  the  tying  of  a  package,  how  unwearied  he  was, 
up  to  the  time  of  his  last  sickness,  in  so  anticiijating  our  wants,  as  to 
make  us  feel  that  there  was  hardly  the  smallest  thing  that  we  could  do 
for  him !  But,  after  the  approach  of  that  illness,  how  he  seemed  to  re- 
joice, feeble  though  he  was,  in  seeing  his  family  around  him  !  It  was 
an  abounding  consolation  for  that  season  of  confinement,  that  we  really 
had  at  last  the  opportunity  of  doing  something  for  him.     When  he  was 


Colonel  Wilder  Dwight,  whose  opening  prospects  of  eminence  in  the  law  his  grandfather 
had  contemplated  with  a  just  pride,  fell  at  the  battle  of  Autietam.  Of  the  many 
young  and  valuable  lives  which  have  been  nobly  offered  up  in  this  struggle,  none  has 
been  felt  to  be  a  greater  public  or  private  loss. 


MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON    WHITE.  69 

well,  it  often  seemed,  wama  as  his  greeting  was,  that,  with  his  books 
and  customary  avocations,  he  was  more  independent  of  children  and 
friends  than  many  people  are ;  but,  in  his  last  days,  he  seemed  to  hun- 
ger for  the  faces  of  '  his  own  flesh.' 

"  As  regarded  any  thing  like  theological  training,  the  listening  to  the 
parables  of  Jesus,  as  he  read  them,  followed,  morning  after  morning,  by 
his  own  fervent  prayer,  are  all  that  I  can  remember  on  his  part.  I 
heard  a  disputation  '  in  the  market-place '  once,  in  Avliich  he  joined 
issue  with  a  farmer  upon  the  interpretation  of  the  text,  '  I  and  my 
Father  are  one  ; '  and  I  believe  that  this  was  my  first  glimpse  into  the 
deep  questions  of  the  Bible.  Nothing  at  home  was  ever  said  to  jar 
with  '  the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ.'  We  children  were  left  wholly 
to  the  Bible ;  and  how  much  would  my  father  have  given,  could  all 
Christendom  have  been  left  wholly  to  that,  without  the  intervention  of 
any  creeds  of  men's  device  ! 

"  The  pains  he  took  with  us,  when  away  from  his  sight,  may  appear, 
when  I  state,  that  the  number  of  his  letters  to  myself  alone  reached 
the  sum  of  six  hundred.  Criticisms  upon  the  character  of  people  in 
private  life  he  sedulously  discouraged  on  our  part,  both  by  precept  and 
example.  His  spirit  we  can  remember  as  being  roused  to  vehemence 
as  he  engaged  in  discussion  ;  but  it  was  in  defence  of  what,  with  him, 
was  principle. 

"As  he  walked  the  streets,  a  stranger  might  have  thouglit  that  here 
possibly  was  a  man  who  stood  upon  his  dignity  ;  but  the  next  moment 
he  miglit  be  seen  st0(>])ing  to  kiss  some  little  child,  or  gambolling  with 
some  neighbor's  boy  as  he  met  him  in  the  first  November's  snowfall, 
tossing  liini  u])on  his  back,  scattering  the  feathery  flakes  over  In'ni,  and 
Ijidfhng  him  'go  to  sleep.' 

"  Through  his  life,  he  loved  to  trace  back  the  lineage  of  his  pious 
ancestry.  It  is  now  a  j)leasant  thought,  that,  during  the  last  few  days 
of  his  life,  his  mind  was  refreshed  with  the  lung-silent  words  of  the 
friends  of  his  boyhood  and  youth,  as  their  letters  (deposited  in  the  same 
box  in  wliicli,  nearly  sixty  years  before,  he  had  found  and  kei)t  tlie 
papers  of  his  lamented  college  chinii)  were  read  aloud  at  his  request. 

"Wlicii,  at  liist.  tliat  aged  form  was  wraj)ped  in  the  habiliments  of 
death,  it  seemed  as  if  it  were  the  face  of  some  serene  and  majestic 
apostle  upon  which  T  gazed.  The  seal  of  his  ministry  seeine(l  to  have 
been  set  upon  him.  J  low  truly  had  it  been  a  ministry!  —  that  loving 
service  to  his  own  household,  to  the  (••(unnnnity,  to  institulions  ol  le.irn- 
ing,  to  the  church  of  Christ  ;    nay,   to  the  spirits  of  the  just,  whose 


70  MEMOIR    OF    HON.    DANIEL    ArPLETON    WHITE. 

earthly  recoi'd  he  gave  his  latest  breath  to  clear  from  what  he  regarded 
as  the  unwarrantable  aspei-sions  of  less  catholic  minds  in  our  own  day. 

"  Even  now,  it  is  a  joy  to  feel  that  I  have  never  seen  the  minister 
nor  the  man,  in  any  denomination,  who  bore  more  evident  traces  of  the 
'  hidden  walk  with  God '  than  he.  I  can  recall  nothing  which  dims  this 
image  of  an  upright,  pure,  consecrated  behever. 

"  He  never  said  a  word  wlaich  suggested  the  idea  to  me  that  he 
expected  anybody  would  write  a  Memoir  of  him ;  but  the  peculiar  grati- 
fication which  he  always  derived  from  his  fellowship  with  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society,  makes  it  to  his  family  a  soothing  reflection, 
that  these  brethren  have  seen  fit  to  pay  his  memory  this  honor,  and 
that  they  have  assigned  it  to  one  who  so  warmly  shared  his  affection 
and  confidence. 

"  I  am,  my  dear  sir,  with  sincer'e  and  affectionate  respect,  most  truly 
yours, 

"William  O.  White. 

"  Rev.  James  Walkek,  D.D.,  Cambridge,  Mass." 


A  List  of  Judge   Whitens  Publications. 

1.  A  Eulogy  on  George  Washington,  who  died  at  Mount  Vernon, 
Dec.  14,  1799.  Delivered,  at  the  Request  of  the  Inhabitants  of 
Methuen,  in  the  Meeting-house  of  the  Fii'st  Parish  in  that  Town. 
HaverhUl,  1800.     8vo,  pp.  18. 

2.  An  Address  to  the  Members  of  the  Merrimack  Humane  Society, 
at  their  Aimiversary  Meeting  in  Newburyport,  Sept.  3,  1805.  New- 
buryport,  1805.     8vo,  pp.  38. 

3.  A  View  of  the  Jurisdiction  and  Proceedings  of  the  Court  of 
Probate  in  Massachusetts,  with  particular  Reference  to  the  County 
of  Essex.     Salem,  1822.     8vo,  pp.  158. 

4.  A  Statement  of  Facts  relating  to  the  Claim  of  Major  Moses 
White  upon  the  United  States,  as  Executor  of  the  late  General 
Moses  Hazen ;  including  some  Consideration  of  its  Merits,  and  an 
Exposition  of  the  Report  of  a  Committee  on  this  Subject,  made  28th 
February;  1820.     Salem,  1827.     8vo,  pp.  15. 


MEMOIR   OF    HON.    DANIEL    APPLETON   WHITE.  71 

5.  An  Address  delivered  at  Ipswicli  before  the  Essex-County 
Lyceum,  at  their  First  Annual  Meeting,  May  5,  1830.  Salem, 
1830.     8vo,  pp.  GO. 

6.  Correspondence  between  the  First  Church  and  the  Tabernacle 
Church  in  Salem ;  in  wliich  the  Duties  of  Churches  are  discussed,  and 
the  Rights  of  Conscience  vindicated.     Salem,  1832.     8vo,  pp.  176. 

7.  An  Eulogy  on  the  Life  and  Character  of  Nathaniel  Bowditch, 
LL.D.,  F.R.S.  Delivered,  at  the  request  of  the  Corporation  of  the 
City  of  Salem,  May  24,  1838.     Salem,  1838.     8vo,  pp.  72. 

8.  An  Address  delivered  at  the  Consecration  of  the  Harmony- 
Grove  Cemetery,  in  Salem,  June  14,  1840.  With  an  Appendix. 
Salem,  1840.     8vo,  pp.  51. 

9.  An  Address  delivered  before  the  Society  of  the  Alumni  of 
Harvard  University,  on  their  Anniversary,  Aug.  27,  1844.  Cam- 
bridge, 1844.     8vo,  pp.  42. 

10.  Eulogy  on  John  Pickering,  LL.D.,  President  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  Delivered  before  the  Academy,  Oct. 
28,  1846.     Cambridge,  1847.     8vo,  pp.  106. 

11.  Notices  of  the  First  Church  in  Salem  and  its  Ministei-s,  1629  to 
1853.     By  a  Member.     Salem,  1853.     8vo,  pp.  30. 

12.  A  Brief  Sketch  of  a  Lecture  delivered  before  the  Essex  Insti- 
tute, May  12,  1856,  respecting  the  Founders  of  Salem  and  the  First 
Church.     Salem,  1856.     8vo,  pp.  14. 

13.  A  Brief  Memoir  of  the  Plummer  Familv;  witli  Historical 
Notices  relative  to  the  Gift  of  Plummer  Hall.  Salem,  1858.  8vo, 
pp.  36. 

14.  New-England  Congregationalism,  in  its  Origin  and  Purity; 
illustrated  by  the  Foundation  and  Early  Records  of  the  First  Church 
in  Salem,  and  various  Discussions  pertaining  to  the  Subject.  Salem, 
1801.     8vo,  pp.  319. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 

nnic 

SEP  3  0  li|M 

SEP  27 
M8t  10  AOI 

«llHHg|>" 


Form  L-9 
2.-.m-2, '13(5205) 


^iiib: 


„;.[(). iv>.  I '1.1  '■   ',/ 


'-■v«j  ■'•»"■ 

iji.t^'f' ., 


•■4 


m 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    000  525  145    9 


i?rpi?7 


